


Swap

by SailorChibi



Series: 2020 Lovesquare Prompt Months [6]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Identity Reveal, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Adrien's relationship with Master Fu was complicated, Akumatized Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Chat Noir Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Lady Noir, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gabriel Agreste | Hawkmoth is a terrible parent, Gabriel Agreste | Hawkmoth's A+ Parenting, Good Parents Sabine Cheng & Tom Dupain, Guardian Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Hawkmoth Defeat, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Kwami Swap, Ladybug Adrien Agreste | Mister Bug, Ladynoir July, Ladynoir July 2020, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Identity Reveal, Marinette misses Master Fu, Miraculous Holder Alya Césaire, Miraculous Holder Chloé Bourgeois, Miraculous Holder Nino Lahiffe, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, POV Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Post-Season/Series 03, Secret Identity Reveal, Tags May Change, akumatized Mister Bug, so mild spoilers for season 03 if you haven't seen all of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 24,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25016539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorChibi/pseuds/SailorChibi
Summary: Chat's suggestion that they swap kwami and practice on patrol seemed so simple. Neither Mister Bug nor Lady Noire could have guessed that it would unraveleverything.A Ladynoir July 2020 story.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: 2020 Lovesquare Prompt Months [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619614
Comments: 659
Kudos: 1408





	1. the wall between us

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual with the prompt months, I'm aiming to do one part a day. I'm taking these prompts from the Ladynoir discord/tumblr and will be using them as chapter titles, but also in unprecedented ways.

“Am I the cat’s meow or what?”

“Or what. Because first of all, you desperately need some new slang from this century. And secondly, you’re not the cat _anything_ right now.”

“Harsh but fair,” Mister Bug said, his green eyes twinkling so brightly that she was hard-pressed to hide her smile. She had to turn away rather than give him the satisfaction, though she knew that he knew her well enough to know that’s exactly what she was doing.

Maybe this hadn’t been such a bad idea after all, she reflected. The first time she and Chat Noir had exchanged miraculouses had been nothing short of awkward. Neither of them had been prepared and they hadn’t really known what they were doing. Despite that, when Chat had suggested they set up a time on patrol to give it another shot, she had initially and instinctively rejected the idea.

But after talking it over with Tikki, she had changed her mind. There was a wall between her and Chat; that was undeniable. Neither of them could cross over that wall, nor could they bring it down for safety and privacy issues – but a better understanding of what both sides of the wall went through couldn’t hurt. Plus, as the guardian, she felt that it was important for her to have a more nuanced understanding of how to use each miraculous, and that included the Black Cat’s.

So she had agreed, much to Chat’s delight, and now here they were. Lady Noire stretched her hands over her head, arching her back in the kind of full body stretch that left you feeling loose-limbed and sleepy. After spending a couple of hours experimenting with Chat’s baton while he played around with her yoyo, she was getting tired. It had to be close to midnight, if not shortly past.

“Are you just about ready to head in?” she asked, looking back at him over her shoulder.

“Just a few more minutes?” he said, putting on a pout. It shouldn’t have been nearly as effective without the drooping kitty ears, but that pout had always done strange, frustrating things to her head. She resisted it for about thirty seconds before caving.

“Okay, okay. Just a few minutes.”

“Yes!” Mister Bug pumped the air like he had just won something exciting, and she couldn’t help rolling her eyes at him.

“I’m tired. Let’s just sit and talk,” she said, walking to the edge of the roof. She took a seat, letting her legs dangle over the edge. It had taken her a long time to get over the dizziness of such heights, but now she didn’t mind them at all. 

“Sure, so long as you promise we can do this again sometime,” he said.

Lady Noire shrugged. “Deal. The Black Cat miraculous is fun, and Plagg is _adorable_. I have no idea why you complain about him so much.”

He made a face as he came to join her. “He sucks up to you, so you don’t know what he’s really like. He whines, he’s dramatic, and he eats the stinkiest cheese known to mankind!”

“I know someone else who is a little whiny and dramatic,” she said slyly. “Sounds like you and Plagg are a perfect match.”

“My Lady,” he complained, and she laughed.

“Proving my point,” she said, gesturing to him, and he mock scowled at her.

“At least I don’t eat stinky cheese,” he said.

“I’ll give you that one,” Lady Noire said, knowing that he wasn’t that crazy about cheese to begin with. “I have to admit, I lucked out with Tikki. Cookies are really easy to get.” Especially when you lived on top of a bakery, but she wasn’t going to share that little tidbit with him.

“Cookies also smell way better,” he pointed out. “Sometimes I can talk Plagg into a different, less smelly cheese, but un- _fur_ -tunately Camembert will always be his one true love.”

Lady Noire opened her mouth to respond, but never got the chance. In the distance, there was screaming. They exchanged startled looks that quickly turned into grim acceptance when someone started yelling about an akuma and several people ran by down below them, accompanied by even _more_ screaming. She leaned forward to watch them go.

“So much for a quiet night,” Mister Bug said with a sigh. “Should we switch back?”

She hesitated slightly before shaking her head. “We’d have to feed Plagg and Tikki before we could transform again and that would delay us too much. Let’s put our training to the test.”


	2. Stargazing

Mister Bug fell into a run behind Lady Noire as they made their way to the source of the problem. It was a little strange running behind a black-suited figure as opposed to bright red with black spots, but he thought that he could get used to it – it turned out that her butt looked amazing no matter what colors she wore.

“What is that?” Lady Noire said in astonishment, and he jerked his eyes up and away from her behind before she could see him looking.

“It’s – um –” Mister Bug scratched at the back of his head, struggling to find the right word to quantify what they were looking at.

The akuma was about twenty feet high, but otherwise shaped like a normal human being. But from head to toe, it was completely grey in color. There was no face, no clothing, not even any identifying marks. He wasn’t even sure how it could see or hear. Yet obviously it could, because its head turned in their direction when Lady Noire spoke and it took a step towards them.

“Creepy,” he finished at last.

“Got that right,” Lady Noire said under her breath, reaching for her hip. Her fingers stilled momentarily when she found a baton and not a yoyo, and Mister Bug started to get a bad feeling.

Delay or no delay, he thought that they probably should have detransformed, swapped back, fed their kwamis, and _then_ dealt with the akuma.

“You go left and I’ll go right,” he said, taking the yoyo in hand. The shape still felt all wrong, circular where it should’ve been long, but it was all he was going to get for the time being since it was too early for a Lucky Charm – and there was no guarantee he’d get a weapon he was more familiar with even if he did cast it.

He jumped off the roof and hit the ground a little too hard without the baton to soften his landing, but there was no time to stop. He surged forward and threw the yoyo out, hoping to wind it around the akuma’s feet. With disturbing ease and speed, the akuma hopped over the yoyo and thrust its hand out. Mister Bug had to leap out of the way of a grey crackle of light. It struck the ground behind him.

Mister Bug stared, half-expecting the ground to melt or otherwise react – but there was nothing. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. What was this akuma’s power?

“Mister Bug, look out!” Lady Noire shrieked.

He pivoted a second too late.

The second light hit him in his chest.

Nothing happened.

“Are you okay?” Lady Noire said frantically, landing beside him.

“Umm… yeah, I’m fine,” he said, baffled. 

She looked him up and down. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t feel any different, and I’m not just saying that,” he replied. “It didn’t do anything.”

Lady Noire looked as confused as he felt. “It’s an akuma. It had to have done _something_.”

“Well?” He spread his arms so that she could look again. Normally this would be the point where he’d disappear, or collapse, or change into an animal or inanimate object, or fall under the akuma’s power, but still nothing.

“Okay…” she said slowly. “Maybe it’s time delayed. Though come to think of it, all those people we’ve seen looked fine too. At least some of them must have been hit by the akuma.”

“It would be just like Hawkmoth to create a useless akuma. He has akumatized Monsieur Ramier several times, after all,” Mister Bug pointed out.

She rolled her eyes at the mention of Ramier and he had to hide a smile. Last time the two of them had been indulging in a bit of stargazing when Monsieur Pigeon had shown up. Ladybug had cursed a blue streak before getting up to go deal with the issue. It was their shortest akuma battle to date.

“Fine, but the instant you start feeling off, you let me know,” she ordered, right before a third crackle of light caught her in the face.

“My Lady!” he squeaked, reaching out to her.

“I’m fine,” Lady Noire said, sounding a bit breathless as she touched her face. “But I’m going to kick that akuma’s ass for hitting both of us.”

Mister Bug was right there with her on that one – until he noticed something. He looked around, scanning the empty street.

“Where did it go?” he asked, and watched Lady Noire look around frantically until she came to the same conclusion that he had.

The akuma was gone.


	3. In denial

“Twenty-foot akumas don’t just _disappear_!” Lady Noire ranted, putting her hands on her hips. She glowered down at the city below her, as though she could make the akuma appear by sheer force of will, but sadly it didn’t work and the city remained blissfully unaware. 

Mister Bug sighed. “Maybe that’s one of its powers,” he theorized. “It can turn invisible.”

“We’ve dealt with invisible akumas before,” she said slowly, remembering Sabrina. Of course, as Vanisher, Sabrina had had a definite target. It was easy to pin her down because she kept going after Chloé. They don’t know anything about this akuma. It had come as quickly as it had gone; the whole encounter, from the time they heard the screams to the time it disappeared, had lasted no more than ten minutes.

“I don’t know. Maybe Hawkmoth decided to take the akuma back,” Mister Bug said.

“But why?” she demanded, just seconds short of stomping her foot in frustration like a petulant child. 

“I don’t know why. I’m just throwing out suggestions,” he said, exasperated.

Lady Noire scowled and crossed her arms, but she had to admit that was a possibility. Just a couple of months ago, Hawkmoth had almost akumatized _her_. She still didn’t know why he had suddenly backed off; one moment she’d been filled to the brim with sheer _rage_ over the bullshit Lila was pulling and the next moment it was like a haze had lifted and she was left blinking in confusion.

“Alright, well. I guess we should head home. It’s late and –” Old instinct stopped her from adding ‘we have school tomorrow’, even though they both knew it was the truth. She knew for a fact now that Chat was around her age and that he attended school, and vice versa. Not because he’d explicitly told her, or she him, but because sometimes it was just really hard to watch what you said all the time.

“Yeah. I have an early morning,” Mister Bug said, glancing around. “Behind the chimney?”

“Sure.”

She followed him over to the chimney and crouched down on the far side. She took a quick glance to make sure that Mister Bug wasn’t watching, then leaned against the brick. It was cold through the fabric of her suit. Their kwamis were going to have to make it fast.

“Plagg, claws in!” she whispered.

Nothing happened.

Lady Noire blinked, looking down at the black gloves of her costume as though expecting them to dematerialize. The ring on her finger continued to glow green.

“Plagg! Claws in!” she hissed more forcefully.

Still nothing.

“Uh, My Lady?” Mister Bug called. “Are you… err, having a problem?”

“No!” she shouted, in denial. “Everything is fine.”

“So… I’m the only one who can’t detransform?” he asked.

Rather than respond, she buried her face in her hands and groaned.

The gentle touch to her shoulder wasn’t unexpected; she didn’t need to look to know who it was. Mister Bug took her hand and pulled it away from her face so that he could get a better look at her ring. Against her will, her eyes flicked to the earrings in his ears. The round, red orbs with the five black spots seemed to be mocking her.

She jumped when Mister Bug started trying to pry the ring off her finger.

“What are you doing?!” she squawked, yanking her hand away. “I could have detransformed!”

He shook his head and said, “It won’t come off.”

“It won’t – what?!” She looked down at the ring and automatically tried to take it off, even though she’d just scolded him for doing the same thing. To her horror, he was right. The ring was stuck and would not budge.

“The earrings won’t come off either,” Mister Bug said grimly. He demonstrated, trying to remove first one and then the other. Both earrings remained stubbornly clasped. 

“Oh my god,” Lady Noire said, struck with sudden horror as she realized what this meant. They couldn’t detransform. They couldn’t go home. Her parents were going to flip out.

“I guess now we know what the akuma’s power is,” he said. “Do you think we need to defeat it?”

“No. No, all we have to do is use our powers,” Lady Noire said, her pulse slowing as she gave a confident nod. “We can’t stay transformed after that.”

“Right!” Mister Bug’s eyes lit up. “Come on. I know just the place.”


	4. Disguises

This time Mister Bug led the way, and he was grateful for that because he didn’t want Lady Noire to be able to see the panic he was feeling. She seemed to feel confident that using their powers would work, but he had his doubts. Still, he was willing to give anything a shot at this point considering that he was due at a photography shoot in about seven hours.

He really, _really_ did not want to have to figure out a disguise for that.

“A park?” Lady Noire said as they arrived, and he nodded. It was a small, quiet place located about two blocks away from his photographer’s studio. Adrien had come across it during a break one day. He liked that it was close enough that he didn’t need to transform to get to it, but not so far away that he couldn’t walk there in five minutes.

“We won’t have any witnesses this way when we detransform,” he told her, carefully avoiding saying ‘ _if_ we detransform’ to avoid stressing her out. He walked over to the garbage can and peered inside, then picked out an empty soda can and tossed it at her.

“Eww,” Lady Noire muttered, but she caught it nevertheless. “Cataclysm!” Her hands glowed with a familiar black light and the can dissolved.

“Alright, the countdown is on,” Mister Bug said, eyeing the ring anxiously. 

She nodded and said, “Okay, your turn.”

“Lucky Charm!” Mister Bug called out, throwing the yoyo aloft. They both stared up as the red light coalesced into… a miniature teapot. Mister Bug caught it with a faint, baffled noise, holding it gingerly.

“Oh,” Lady Noire said softly.

“What?” he asked, looking over at her.

She bit her lip, then reached out to take the teapot. Her fingers traced one of the black spots. Mister Bug watched her closely, but for the life of him he couldn’t interpret the expression on her face. She was quiet for several seconds, then let out a sigh.

“Do you remember the time that we fought Sapotis?”

“Alya’s evil little sisters?” Mister Bug said, unconsciously rubbing his shoulder. That akuma had been a rough one. 

“Yeah, that’s them. I used my Lucky Charm during the battle, and it gave me a teapot. I wasn’t sure what to do until I realized that Tikki was telling me to go see Master Fu, because the two of us weren’t enough to handle that akuma alone,” she explained.

“Oh,” Mister Bug said, even quieter than she had. Now he understood what her expression had meant. Wistfulness, perhaps even longing, for Master Fu. He, and all the knowledge he’d contained, was beyond their reach now thanks to Hawkmoth. Neither of them knew where Master Fu and Madame Lenoir had gone; the two of them had departed Paris arm-in-arm to start new lives together in disguise.

Ladybug had been struggling with that, he knew. She didn’t talk about Master Fu, but he had known her long enough to be able to tell. It made sense: she and Master Fu had shared a special mentor relationship, and Master Fu had spent many hours imparting wisdom and advice to her. In fact, it was probably safe to say that Master Fu had been one of Ladybug’s most ardent supporters.

The same could not be said for Master Fu and Chat Noir, but that was beside the point.

“What do you think it means?” he asked her. “We can’t exactly go to Master Fu for help now.”

“I don’t know.” Lady Noire exhaled and shook her head, handing the teapot back to him. In doing so, he caught a glimpse of her ring. His stomach tightened when he saw that the five pads were still lit up with green. He hadn’t been tracking the time, but he knew that at least a minute had to have passed.

He sat down on the bench and set the teapot in his lap, idly drumming his fingers on it. Lady Noire sat beside him, bouncing her knee anxiously. After a couple of minutes, she got up to pace back and forth. 

Minutes passed.

Finally, he sighed. “It’s not working.”

“It’s not working,” she agreed, distressed. “What do we do now?”

Mister Bug pursed his lips, thinking. They couldn’t detransform. Using their powers hadn’t worked. Whatever the akuma had done was overriding the usual failsafe. Did that mean they could use their powers multiple times in a row? Was it putting a drain on their kwami to do so? It seemed best to err on the side of caution, but they also needed their powers to defeat the akuma…

“This _sucks_ ,” Lady Noire lamented, throwing herself down beside him, and Mister Bug couldn’t find it in himself to disagree.


	5. Banter

It was getting close to two in the morning by Lady Noire’s estimation. She and Mister Bug hadn’t spoken for the last half as hour, as though speaking might destroy the last shards of their fragile hope. She stared up at the sky and told herself for about the fiftieth time that they might suddenly detransform at any moment… but she knew she was just fooling herself.

“We can’t stay out here all night,” she said finally.

“Where do you want to go?” Mister Bug asked, tilting his head to look at her expectantly.

Only she didn’t have an answer. Lady Noire closed her eyes, frustrated. It would be pretty hard for her to go home right now. Her parents could be kind of oblivious, but not even they could fail to notice that she was dressed like a superhero.

Unless she could convince them that she was cosplaying?

She pondered that possibility for a few seconds. As her civilian self, she had always walked a careful line between ignoring the existence of Paris’s superheroes and being as complimentary of them as the average Parisian was expected to be. Would cosplaying look unexpectedly weird? Would it draw _too much_ attention? 

But what was the alternative? If it took them a couple days to track the akuma down – and god she hoped it wouldn’t take that long, but she had to be realistic – she couldn’t just go missing! Her parents would freak out. The last thing she needed was for them to pull the police into things. Mister Bug would surely notice if Marinette Dupain-Cheng went missing at the same time that Lady Noire was trapped like this. 

“Do you think you could go home?” she asked after a long pause.

“Home? Like this?”

“Yeah. We could pretend that we’re cosplaying,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Just to keep our parents from freaking out, you know?”

Mister Bug didn’t say anything for a moment. His expression was conflicted. Lady Noire was content to wait, knowing that it wasn’t an easy decision for him. They didn’t often talk about their home lives, but Chat had let a few things slip over the course of their time together. His father was not a very nice man, to put it lightly, and he put a ton of pressure on his son. 

“Maybe,” he said at last. “If I had to. It would make things complicated, and my father wouldn’t be very happy. He doesn’t like Ladybug and Chat Noir much.” He flashed her a small smile. “But I could probably tell him that I’m testing the suit out for a friend of mine. He might believe that; he thinks this friend of mine is very talented.”

“Cool,” Lady Noire said, wondering who that friend was. She would never admit it but hearing about his friends made her a _tiny_ bit jealous. 

Sometimes it was hard to deal with the fact that a huge chunk of their lives had to be so separate.

“In the meantime though, I wonder what this is supposed to mean,” he went on, lightly tossing the teapot into the air. “You said last time it led you to Master Fu, right?”

Lady Noire nodded. “And eventually to Rena Rouge,” she said. “Do you think that Tikki was telling us to get help from the rest of the team?”

“Could be, but I don’t really see what anyone else could do right now. Unless there’s a miraculous that’s designed to seek out akumas and you cruelly failed to share?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“Not as far as I know, though that would be nice,” she said, appreciating his attempt at lightening the atmosphere. It wasn’t their usual banter, but just talking to him was enough to lift her spirits a bit.

“Okay… then maybe Tikki meant something different.”

“Like what?”

Mister Bug crossed his arms and tapped his foot. “Maybe we’re supposed to go to where Master Fu used to be.”

“But he’s not there anymore,” she pointed out.

“I know that, and Tikki surely knows that, but…” He shrugged. “It’s the only thing I can think of. I’m not ready to go home yet; I’d rather exhaust every other avenue we can. We can try the shop and if there’s nothing there, maybe we can patrol for a few hours.” He cast her a hopeful look, and she softened. Frankly, she didn’t want to go home either if it could be avoided.

So she nodded and said, “Alright, sure. Can’t hurt.”


	6. Rose

Mister Bug had never actually been to Master Fu's shop before, so he looked around curiously as Lady Noire unlocked the door and pushed it open. The outer part of the shop where customers would be was a decent size, though naturally all of the shelves were empty now. 

Everything was coated with a fine layer of dust and he realized that no one had been here since Master Fu had left Paris. That made him wonder what would happen to the shop. Was it still in Fu's name? Had he rented it? Owned it? He was probably never going to come back to Paris, and even if he did, he wouldn't remember the shop. It seemed like a waste to leave it empty. 

He turned to Lady Noire to ask her if she had talked to Master Fu or Madame Lenoir about that before they left, but paused when he saw the look on Lady Noire's face. She had her head turned slightly away, arms wrapped tightly around herself, but there was no missing the tears in her eyes.

"Hey," Mister Bug said softly, moving over to her and pulling her into a hug. She sniffed and went with it, wrapping her arms around his back and pressing her face to his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't expect it to be this hard to come back here."

"It's my fault. I didn't think," he said, frustrated with himself. Of course this was hard for her. It was a reminder of the mentor she had lost.

She shook her head. "No, it's okay. It was a smart idea." She pulled back and gave him a small smile. "Let's just hope that there's something here worth the trip."

"Let's look around," he suggested, giving her one last squeeze before dropping his arms. 

Together, they went back into the living area. There were five rooms: a small kitchen, two rooms that probably functioned as bedrooms, or maybe a bedroom and an office, a bathroom, and a living room. Lady Noire went into the two bedrooms, while Mister Bug poked his head into the kitchen. It was there that he spotted an envelope on the counter, alongside a dried rose. He walked over and picked the envelope up, realizing that it was addressed to Ladybug.

A frown tugged at his lips. Even now, it stung that Master Fu's first and seemingly only thought was for Ladybug.

" _Chaton_ , did you find anything?" Lady Noire called. "I'm coming up empty."

"There's a letter for you," he said, forcing a smile as he turned to face her.

"A letter? Master Fu already left me a letter." She came closer and took it, opening it up. There were a few sheets of paper inside. Her eyes widened at whatever she read.

"What is it?" he asked, impatient.

"Master Fu left me the shop," she breathed, shocked.

"What?!"'

"He left me - us - the shop," she repeated, looking at Mister Bug in amazement. "It's under an alias until I turn eighteen, and then he's left me instructions on going to the bank and putting it in my name if I want to. He wants us to use it at as a base."

"Wow," Mister Bug said, stunned. Two letters and a _shop_ for Ladybug, and not so much as a letter for him. He breathed through the jealousy, wondering why adults never liked him. Even the so-called lessons he'd had with Master Fu had been bereft of any real information. He had learned more from things Ladybug said in casual conversation than he had from the guardian. Sure Ladybug had been learning to be the new guardian, so it made sense that she knew way more - but still. Surely he should know something?

What was it that he did wrong?

Lady Noire looked up at him and frowned. "What? Was is it?"

"Nothing," he lied. "I wonder if Tikki knew about this, or at least guessed. Is that why she led us here?"

Sufficiently distracted, Lady Noire shrugged and picked up the dried rose. "It could be. This is helpful, at least temporarily. We won't have to spend the night out on the streets, at any rate. It's supposed to rain and I hear cats hate that." She shot him a sly smile.

In spite of himself, he smiled back. "If that's the case, I'd be more worried for yourself right now."

"I'll have you know I'm still a bug at heart," she said, tapping her chest. "You can take the bug out of her suit, but you can't take the bug out of the girl."

"I know. That's what I love about you," Mister Bug admitted shamelessly, and her cheeks flushed.


	7. Interviews

“What am I going to do with a shop?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you can sell something.”

Sell something. Her mind immediately flashed to a future where she sold her own things out of Master Fu’s shop: clothes and maybe even shoes or jewelry. That would be amazing. She had dreams of making it big in the fashion world, but sometimes she also liked the idea of having her own little space where she was in control of everything…

“You have lots of time to think about it though,” Mister Bug went on. He was laying on the floor, hands behind his head. “You can’t even put it in your name until you’re eighteen.”

“Yeah. And you’d have to agree with that too.”

Mister Bug turned his head slightly to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“It’s your shop too,” she said. “We’re supposed to use it as a base, remember? Can’t exactly do that if I’m selling stuff out of it.” Or maybe using a store for its intended purpose would make it _less_ suspicious? Would a store remaining empty for several years look weird?

“It’s not ours, it’s yours. Master Fu left it to you,” he said.

Lady Noire frowned and looked at the letter again, realizing that he was right. The letter was addressed solely to her and failed to mention Chat Noir… and this was the second letter that Master Fu had left for her.

“Did he leave you a letter?” she asked.

“No.”

A simple answer, and yet she could hear the frustration and, dare she think it, bitterness in his voice. Her fingers tightened around the letter until the paper threatened to rip.

It wasn’t fair.

This wasn’t the first time she had thought that, but it was the first time that it really _hit_ her. Why hadn’t Master Fu taken Chat Noir under his wing the way he had Ladybug? Every time she had asked him about it, Master Fu would just shake his head and say it wasn’t the right time – or rather, he usually gave some convoluted metaphor that wasn’t really an answer. Since he was the guardian, she had always accepted that.

She had thought that it made more sense after finding out that Master Fu wanted her to be the next guardian, but it really didn’t. Chat Noir had a miraculous that was, by all counts, more dangerous than the Ladybug miraculous. Master Fu should’ve been working with him all along. That’s what Ladybug would’ve done, rather than trust Plagg to be the one imparting wisdom and guidance.

Master Fu had favored her big time. The truth of that was staring her in the face right now. She thought about all that she knew, and all that Chat Noir _didn’t_ know, and realized that by doing so, Master Fu had unwittingly deepened the chasm between them. They weren’t equals right now, not really.

“You’d have to be careful,” Mister Bug said.

Lady Noire looked at him, startled. “What?”

“If you sold stuff and wanted to use it as a base. Too many interviews and it might even catch Hawkmoth’s notice.”

“You’re making a big assumption that I would even get _an_ interview, never mind too many,” she said dryly, folding the letter up and tucking it away in one of her pockets. Seriously, _pockets_. She was going to be having a long conversation with Tikki when she got her kwami back – and not just about the pockets, either.

She joined Mister Bug on the floor, sitting with her knees tucked up against her chest. By her estimation, it was probably close to 4am. They only had another couple of hours to decide what they were going to do. Her parents were definitely going to notice if she failed to come downstairs, and she thought that Mister Bug’s father would notice too.

“We should probably go patrol for the akuma,” she said. “Otherwise, I’ll have to go home.”

“Right.” He exhaled and sat up, hunching his shoulders. “I’d really rather not.”

“Your father has bad taste if he doesn’t like Ladybug and Chat Noir,” she said lightly.

Mister Bug gave her a small smile. “He has bad taste in a lot of things. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. But you’re right. We should go patrol. Maybe we can tempt the akuma out of hiding.” He stood up, stretched, and offered her a hand. She let him pull her up.


	8. Kwami swap

They didn’t find the akuma.

Mister Bug landed lightly on the windowsill and crawled into his room. He perched there for a moment, thinking about the uncomfortable conversation he was about to have. Gabriel Agreste had made no attempts at hiding how he felt about Ladybug and Chat Noir: any talk about the two superheroes seemed to make his father uncomfortable at best and irritated at worst.

But there was no helping it. He and Lady Noire had patrolled the city for almost two and a half hours with no sign of the akuma, until finally Lady Noire had no choice but to head home because of the time. Mister Bug had seriously considered _not_ coming home but figured that the outrage over him being dressed as a superhero would be less than the panic that would ensure if he were missing.

As it was, he was going to have to deal with the inevitiable fallout over missing his photoshoot this morning.

Sighing, he stepped down, walked over to his desk, and got everything ready like he would if he were planning to go to the shoot today – which he wasn’t, of course, but neither his father nor Nathalie needed to know that. He also packed a change of clothes. Then he took a deep, fortifying breath and left his room.

“Good morning, Adrien,” Nathalie said when he walked into the dining room.

“Good morning,” he said, a little amused. As per usual, Nathalie was staring at her tablet like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. There was no sign of Gabriel. Perhaps this would be easier than he’d thought.

“You’re not going to school today because of your photoshoot. It should be finished around 3pm. Then you have a Chinese lesson scheduled for two hours,” she said, making a note on her tablet.

“Okay,” Mister Bug said. He wouldn’t be going to his Chinese lesson either, but his tutor was pretty good about not telling anyone about the lessons Adrien skipped. As long as his tutor got paid, she didn’t care.

“Now, this Friday, you’ll - _mon dieu_! Adrien, what are you wearing?!” Nathalie exclaimed, having looked up at last.

“What do you think?” Mister Bug struck a pose. “Do I look like the real thing?”

She stared at him for a baffled moment. “Yes,” she said finally. “You look _very_ real.”

“Good,” he said, pasting on a confident smile. “My friend Marinette will be happy to hear that.”

“Your friend Marinette will be happy to hear what?”

Mister Bug tensed slightly and turned around just in time to see the look on his father’s face when he caught sight of his son for the first time. It wasn’t often that he got to see Gabriel Agreste look completely astonished.

“Adrien, what are you wearing?” Gabriel said finally.

“Marinette made this costume and asked me to try it out for her,” Mister Bug lied smoothly. He was grateful that he and Ladybug had swapped kwami. Mister Bug had only ever appeared in public once before, so there were less chances that people could compare him to the real Mister Bug and find out how similar they were. He wouldn’t have dared try this as Chat Noir.

Despite that, something in Gabriel’s expression changed. His jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed slightly, but he said nothing.

Unnerved, Mister Bug added, “She wants to wear it to a convention in a couple weeks and wanted to find out if it was comfortable, so I said I’d wear it around a bit and let her know if there was anything that needed to be changed. What do you think, Père? Do you see anything off?”

“I would need to look more closely,” Gabriel said stiffly, closing the distance between them. 

Mister Bug felt the urge to run.

In the next instant, he scolded himself. This was his father and acting strangely was not going to help the situation. He had to stay calm and pretend that nothing was out of the ordinary. So, he held still as Gabriel reached out and ran a hand down his arm, feeling the texture of the suit. 

It was harder to remain still when Gabriel moved behind him; all his nerves prickled at once, and he was suddenly highly conscious of the fact that Nathalie was blocking one of the exits.

Fingers touched Mister Bug’s ears.

“These earrings. They look so… real,” Gabriel said, very softly. “Don’t they look real, Nathalie?”

“Very real,” Nathalie said.

Mister Bug swallowed. “Père?”

“Adrien, I think we need to talk.”


	9. Fist bump

“You can do this, Marinette. Just be calm, be cool, and don’t freak out,” Lady Noire told herself. She took a deep breath, tightened her grip on her backpack, and stepped out into the kitchen.

Unluckily – thank you Plagg – both her parents were there this morning. Sabine was stirring a pot of something on the stove and Tom was just finishing off his breakfast, no doubt ready to go back down to the bakery kitchens. She inwardly cursed herself for not waiting just a few more minutes. One of her parents was always easier to deal with than both. She was half-tempted to duck back upstairs –

“M-Marinette?” Tom stuttered when he caught sight of her.

Show time. Lady Noire pasted on a smile and spread her arms. “What do you think, Papa?”

He stared at her with wide eyes. Sabine turned around and gasped.

“Alya asked me to make her a Lady Noire costume for the upcoming convention. I just finished it and decided that I would surprise Alya by wearing it so that she could see how it looks. Does it look good?” Lady Noire said quickly, doing a quick spin.

Tom recovered first, smiling widely. “You look amazing! Almost had me thinking that you were the real thing.”

“Oh, Papa.” Lady Noire rolled her eyes to cover up the rush of adrenaline. “Maman? Does it look right?”

Sabine stepped closer, looking her up and down. “Hmm. I’m not very familiar with Lady Noire or Mister Bug, but isn’t your wig a little long?”

“I measured from pictures, but you could be right. I might have to cut it a little,” she lied, fingering the edge of her braid. She couldn’t let her maman look _too_ closely less Sabine realize that her daughter was not wearing a wig. 

“Hang on. If Alya asked you to make the costume for her, then why does it fit you?” Tom asked.

Lady Noire froze. Shit. How could she have not thought of that?

Sabine took one look at her panicked expression and laughed. “Oh my. I know what’s going on here.”

“You – you do?” Lady Noire squeaked. Her thoughts raced. On the one hand, having her parents know her identity was something of a relief. She wouldn’t have to hide anymore. On the other hand, it also complicated things in many ways –

“Of course! Alya and Nino are going as Ladybug and Chat Noir, so you and Adrien are going as Lady Noire and Mister Bug, aren’t you?” Sabine said with a knowing smile.

Lady Noire blinked.

Tom laughed too. “Ah, I see now. Adrien loves Ladybug, doesn’t he? He couldn’t pass up the chance to cosplay as his favorite superheroine. And of course, you wanted to be his partner.” His eyes twinkled as he stood up, and his teasing remark was finally enough to jumpstart Lady Noire’s brain. She sputtered as a ferocious blush broke out across her face, and her parents exchanged grins.

“And even though you’d make a wonderful Ladybug, Alya loves Ladybug too much to let anyone else claim her anyway,” Sabine concluded. “Poor Nino probably got roped into her being her Chat Noir whether he wanted it or not.”

“That’s – that’s not – that’s!” Lady Noire couldn’t seem to form sentences anymore. She placed her hands over her burning cheeks, not sure what was more embarrassing: the thought of going to a convention with Adrien, or the thought that her parents knew she was so enamored with Adrien that his involvement would be the only reason she’d ever dress up like this.

Sabine took pity on her. “Marinette, I think your costume is stunning. If Alya’s Ladybug costume is anything like yours, she’s a very lucky girl. Are you making costumes for Nino and Adrien too?”

Mutely, Lady Noire nodded. There was nothing else she could do but run with it. Too much denying would just make her parents suspicious, and they wouldn’t believe her anyway.

“Just make sure you don’t take on too much,” Sabine cautioned.

“I won’t,” Lady Noire whispered.

“Here, let’s practice!” Tom thrust his fist out towards her.

Lady Noire looked at him. “Fist bump? Really, Papa?”

“Come onnnnn,” Tom whined.

“Fine.” She sighed but couldn’t help smiling as she lightly bumped her fist against his.

“And remember, we’re going to want pictures!” Sabine said.

“Great,” Lady Noire said, her smile frozen. She was happy that her parents hadn’t figured things out after all, but this meant that she was actually going to have to make four superhero costumes now _and_ actually go to the convention _and_ convince Adrien to go too. Plagg and his bad luck _really_ sucked.


	10. Breakdown

“Talk? Talk about what?” Mister Bug turned partially so that he could see his father, yet instinct kept him from turning his back fully on Nathalie. Doing so also had the effect of putting the miraculous safely out of Gabriel’s reach. He stood so that he could watch them both.

“If you want my professional opinion of the suit, you’ll have to take it off,” Gabriel said.

“Take it off?”

“So I can examine it in detail. It’s too hard to do so while you’re wearing it.”

“Umm… I’d rather not,” Mister Bug said slowly. “It’s not mine… so I’d have to ask Marinette first.”

“Surely she would be thrilled to get attention from a famous designer,” Gabriel pointed out.

“Yes, isn’t she the one who mentioned being a big fan of your father’s work?” Nathalie spoke up. “It would be an honor for her to get a critique from him.”

Mister Bug swallowed. His heart was racing. “I – I really can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Adrien.” Gabriel’s voice was low. “Take off that suit _right now_.”

“No,” Mister Bug said, though it came out weaker than he would have liked. He wasn’t used to saying no to his father and it showed. 

“Why not?” Gabriel demanded. He took another step closer and Mister Bug automatically backed up.

“Because,” Mister Bug said, which was not an answer, but the problem was that he didn’t _have_ a good answer. “Père, you’re scaring me. Why are you acting like this?”

Gabriel did not answer. Rather, he came closer still. Mister Bug’s stomach sank when his shoulder blades came into contact with the wall, and he realized that his father had literally backed him up until he couldn’t go any further. Gabriel was right in front of him, with Nathalie to his right. His eyes darted around, seeking an escape route. The window was closest, but it was shut.

“You keep saying that you _can’t_ take the suit off. I find that very interesting,” Gabriel said, his eyes glittering. “Let me help you.”

He reached out – but not for the suit.

Mister Bug’s hand snapped up and he caught his father’s arm by the wrist.

Gabriel’s fingers were inches from Mister Bug’s ears.

There was a tense silence.

“Adrien.” Gabriel’s voice was low. So low that had they not been standing mere inches apart, Mister Bug probably wouldn’t have heard it.

“Père. What are you doing?” Mister Bug whispered.

“I could ask you the same question,” Gabriel breathed. “Give me those earrings.”

“No,” Mister Bug said, firmer this time, and pushed his father away.

He didn’t mean to push so hard.

Sometimes it was easy to forget how strong he was when transformed, because he usually only interacted with Ladybug and akumas.

Gabriel staggered back and tripped over Adrien’s bag, falling back against the table.

His jacket caught on a chair and ripped.

Mister Bug threw out a useless hand as Gabriel then fell to the floor.

“Gabriel!” Nathalie exclaimed, rushing to his side. She knelt down and helped Gabriel to sit up. Gabriel groaned as he was moved, lifting a hand to his head. The top two buttons on his vest had come undone, leaving his tie askew – and revealing what was underneath.

“Is that –”

Gabriel and Nathalie looked up at him, then – in perfect sync – down at the broach pinned to Gabriel’s shirt which had once been hidden by the tie.

“That’s…” Mister Bug couldn’t bring himself to finish that sentence.

It couldn’t be.

Yet as Gabriel’s expression changed to one of pure fury, it _had_ to be.

“Adrien, give me that miraculous!” Gabriel roared, surging to his feet. 

“You… no.” Mister Bug shook his head in denial. Was this what a complete breakdown felt like? He wanted to bury his head in his hands and forget this was happening; he wanted to use the Rabbit miraculous to go back to the moment when he’d thought it would be okay to come downstairs. He wanted – 

He needed Ladybug.

“Nathalie, stop him!” Gabriel shouted.

But Nathalie was human, and not nearly fast enough to stop him. Mister Bug leapt effortlessly over her and shot through the door. He heard Nathalie and Gabriel yelling behind him but didn’t stop to find out what they were saying. He hurtled through the front door, took the steps in a single leap, and then grabbed his yoyo and threw it out with all of his strength.

It wrapped around something in the distance. With one jerk, Mister Bug was yanked off his feet and sent sailing across the city.


	11. Comfort

“Can I take some pastries?”

“For Adrien?” Tom said, smirking.

Lady Noire put her hands on her hips and glared. Her papa just laughed.

“Yes, Marinette, you can take all the pastries you want,” Sabine said, gently nudging Tom in the ribs. She, at least, seemed to realize that her daughter had reached her tolerance for teasing.

“Thanks, Maman. I’ll see you later.” Lady Noire kissed her parents goodbye and hurried out of the room. Her stomach was growling but she didn’t have time to stop to eat, and she thought that Mister Bug would probably be hungry too. For sure, whenever they managed to defeat the akuma, Tikki and Plagg would be _starving_.

So, she slipped into the bakery kitchen during a moment when it was empty and gathered together a box of pastries, then snuck some cheese and a few extra cookies into the box too. Then she stored her backpack under a counter where it wouldn’t be found so she could safely pick it up later before leaving.

She and Mister Bug had agreed to meet at Master Fu’s shops at half past 8… exactly the time when Marinette should have been sitting down at her desk beside Alya. Lady Noire sighed as she took to the rooftops and started making her way east. This was yet another day of classwork that she was going to have to make up for and she was already behind. Stupid Hawkmoth.

“I’m gonna kick him in his ass when we meet again,” she muttered, landing in the alley behind the shop. Inside, all was as dark and quiet as it had been when she and Mister Bug left. Lady Noire set the box on the counter and then allowed herself an agonized groan, pressing her gloved hands to her face. 

Her parents were truly something else. Knowing that they’d bought her lie was cold comfort. Now they had even more ammunition to tease her about when it came to Adrien. That was embarrassing enough, but it was even worse now that she wasn’t really sure about Adrien anymore.

Oh, she still loved Adrien.

But then there was Luka.

And Kagami’s feelings for Adrien.

And, in the privacy of her own mind, Chat Noir.

Her blush deepened as thoughts of her partner crossed her mind. She had always been too wrapped up in Adrien to seriously consider her flirty, silly, pun-loving partner. But after everything that happened…

She just didn’t know anymore.

Chat Noir was the _one person_ who had _always_ been there for her. Lady Noire had always known that, but she hadn’t understood the full impact of what that meant until she was crying because everything was her fault and her beloved kitty had wrapped her up in the hug she so desperately needed. He was always there, giving her the courage she needed, the shoulder she could lean on, and the arms that she could hide in.

That meant a lot.

But how much?

Because there was Luka, sweet Luka who just didn’t understand, and there was still Adrien, who made her heart flutter and words come out tangled. Kagami’s feelings complicated things, especially since she was pretty sure that Adrien liked Kagami back.

Luka liked Marinette.

Chat Noir loved Ladybug.

She sighed, sliding down the wall until she was seated on the floor with her legs pulled up against her chest. It was no one’s fault, but there was no one person who knew _all_ of her. Not her parents. Not Alya. Not the boys. 

Chat Noir probably came closest; he knew her personality inside out, and that didn’t change outside of the mask. What he didn’t know was largely superficial in a lot of ways, but still.

She wondered if Master Fu had ever become lonely, being the guardian.

Was that one of the reasons why he had given out the Ladybug _and_ the Black Cat miraculous?

It bothered her that she’d never get the chance to ask.

“And if that is why you gave out the miraculous, then why did you keep Chat in the dark so much?” she asked out loud, as though the shop could answer. “You said we were supposed to be equal, but we’re not. You made him my partner, but – ”

 _I could make him my equal_.

The words went unsaid, as Mister Bug chose that exact moment to come crashing through the back door.


	12. Falling

His landing was not graceful.

Mister Bug rapidly developed renewed sympathy for Ladybug’s first fumbling attempts with her yoyo. His boot clipped the edge of the roof the yoyo’s trajectory had led him to, and – instead of the landing he had planned for – he went down face first. Sheer momentum had him rolling ass over head for several feet until he came to a miserable heap in the middle of the roof, face down and limbs splayed. 

The crowning glory of it all was when the yoyo unwound from whatever it had caught on, automatically reeled itself in, and cracked him on the top of the head in the process.

“Fuck,” Mister Bug said raggedly, not lifting his head. Had Plagg been around, the little kwami would’ve been laughing hysterically.

Or maybe not.

Even Plagg would have been able to appreciate the severity of this.

He closed his eyes, trying not to see the moment when he’d glimpsed that broach. It could just be a piece of jewelry that Gabriel liked to wear, as unlikely as that was. But when that broach was paired with Gabriel’s behavior –

“My father is Hawkmoth.”

Mister Bug tasted the words, felt his lips shaping them, but they were no less ridiculous. Crazy.

 _Wrong_.

How could Gabriel Agreste be Hawkmoth?

He was a fashion designer for crying out loud! He hadn’t even left the house in over a year. Not since –

Not since Émilie had died.

Gabriel had changed a lot in the days following Émilie’s death. He had never been an overly demonstrative father; Mister Bug could count on one hand the number of times that Gabriel had ever hugged him. But Gabriel had smiled a lot less after that. When he looked at Adrien, it was like he was looking _through_ him. As though Adrien was no longer worth looking _at_.

He had become a lot sterner too. Restricted Adrien’s activities even more, which was one of many reasons why Adrien had fought so hard about going to public school. Some people might think Gabriel’s begrudging, hard won agreement to that was a sign of him changing –

But Mister Bug knew better.

School was something for his father to hold over him. Something that would make Adrien acquiesce even when he didn’t want to. And it worked. Losing the right to go to school, and by extension his friends, was a terrifying thought. At least when he’d been locked up before, Émilie had been there. This time, Adrien would have no one but Plagg.

And Ladybug.

He bit his lip at the thought of her. As much as he wanted to see her, he also didn’t want to see her. What would she think? 

He couldn’t hide this from her. She needed to know.

Yet he also didn’t think he could hide why this was impacting him so much.

She didn’t want to know who he was…

If he told her, she would know.

“My father is Hawkmoth,” Mister Bug whispered again. Resignation was a heavy weight indeed, settling on his shoulders like an unwanted blanket.

He thought about all the times that Gabriel had been locked up in his office, ‘too busy’ to see his son. He thought about all the pressure he had put himself under, trying to gain some scrap of his father’s approval. Trying to be the perfect son. He thought about how Plagg had once remarked that in Gabriel’s eyes, Adrien seemed to be nothing more than another commodity for the _Gabriel_ brand; Adrien had scolded him at the time, but only because the comment had rung painfully true.

He thought about all the people of Paris who had been akumatized – the anger, the grief, the denial. He thought about the damage, the injuries, the deaths: Ladybug’s magical Cure may have erased them all, but they had still happened. He thought about his lady and the tears she had cried and the pain she'd gone through.

Chat Noir had still been thrown off buildings, throw into buildings, beaten, stabbed, brainwashed, erased from the timeline, and more.

Because of his father.

Because there was something his father wanted badly enough that no one else mattered.

Including his son.

Gabriel hadn’t known that Adrien was Chat Noir before now…

But it wouldn’t have mattered.

It wouldn’t matter now.

The weight became heavier still, seeping into his chest and squeezing hard until his breathing stuttered. It was not a surprise, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. His hands shook as he pushed himself up, standing on equally shaky legs. When he licked his lips, he tasted the salt of tears; he hadn’t even realized tears were falling, but the cool breeze told him his face was wet.

He stooped and picked up the yoyo, tracing one of the black spots. Then, before he could change his mind, he threw the yoyo out again and leapt off the roof.


	13. Cuddles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this chapter, I've decided to take this story in a slightly different direction. If you were here solely for the public reveal, then I'm sorry to say that is no longer going to happen.

“You made it!” Lady Noire exclaimed, inexplicably relieved to see him – they hadn’t been separated long, but under the effects of an akuma’s curse every minute was too long.

Or at least, she was relieved until she saw his face.

Mister Bug’s eyes were filled with tears. He had clearly been crying for a little while already. His face was chalk white behind flushed cheeks, and he looked terrible.

“Chat? What’s wrong? What happened?” She quickly scrambled to her feet.

He said nothing; he just stood there and stared at her.

That, more than anything, scared Lady Noire. She found herself reaching out to him before she could stop herself. The instant she laid a hand on his arm, Mister Bug let out a choked sound and moved.

But he didn’t run away.

Instead, he crushed her in a hug so tight that it took Lady Noire’s breath away.

“Chat?” she whispered, torn between bewilderment and fear. 

He buried his face in her neck, shaking with the force of his sobs.

The need to comfort him won out over everything else. Cuddles probably wouldn’t be enough to deal with whatever _this_ was, but she had to try. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around him, gently stroking his hair in the way that she knew he liked. Normally that would’ve made him purr immediately, but this time her actions only made him cry harder.

 _Something_ had happened. Something bad. But what? They hadn’t been apart for that long. It had taken her just under an hour and a half to run home, speak to her parents, get their breakfast, and make her way back to the shop. Mister Bug had indicated that he was going straight home, so –

His father.

She closed her eyes, biting her lip. He had mentioned a couple of times that his father didn’t like Ladybug and Chat Noir. Obviously, he hadn’t been joking, but she hadn’t thought it would be this bad.

“Was it your dad?” she asked as gently as she could.

Again he said nothing, but she felt him nod against her neck.

Lady Noire tightened her grip on him, anger swirling in her heart. Horrible scenarios raced through her mind, each one worse than the last. What could his father have done that would provoke this sort of reaction? 

She wanted to press for more details, but Mister Bug was in no shape to give them. So instead, she kept petting his hair and let him cry it out.

“I’m here,” she whispered to him eventually. “I’m here with you, _Chaton_. It’s going to be okay.”

Once more, Mister Bug shook his head. This time, he spoke.

“My father…” The words were spoken hoarsely, with a ragged inhale that promised more tears were to come.

“Your father?” she repeated, trying to sound encouraging and not at all like she was furious. Knowing her partner the way she did, he would think she was angry at him.

“He’s Hawkmoth.”

 _That_ was the last thing Lady Noire expected.

Her mouth dropped open, but no words came out.

Mister Bug pulled back to look at her face. Whatever he saw clearly distressed him further, because his face crumpled, and he pulled away fully.

She stared at him, frozen. 

Speechless.

“My father is _Hawkmoth_ ,” Mister Bug repeated, as though she could have missed it the first time. “All this time, the person who’s been trying to kill us was my own father.” He gave a little laugh, and her stomach twisted at the audible edge of hysteria.

“Chat…” she breathed.

“All this time…” Mister Bug said, more to himself than to her. “All this time.”

Chat’s _father_. She didn’t know what to do with that information. Lady Noire felt like the floor had been pulled out from underneath her, and everything she thought she knew about the world had been flipped upside down. She wanted to insist that he couldn’t be right, that he’d somehow misunderstood because a parent would never do that, but the truth was as naked in Mister Bug’s face as the akuma heading towards him.

Lady Noire blinked.

Akuma!

“Get down!” she screeched, throwing herself forward. “Cataclysm!”

But the akuma was, perhaps, prepared for this: it dodged her flailing claws, swooped around her, and landed on Mister Bug’s yoyo.

She stumbled and fell against the counter, her hand accidentally landing on the box of pastries. They dissolved into black ashes.

And Mister Bug looked up as the purple butterfly mask formed over his eyes.


	14. Chat Blanc

Lady Noire’s arms were so warm. She held him and petted his head just the way he liked it. He knew she was angry, even if she didn’t even know _why_ she should be angry, and he loved her for it. He loved her so much that it was agony because he knew what was coming next would irrevocably change everything.

He wanted to stay there with her forever.

But he couldn’t.

He needed to know what her response would be to his confession.

So he told her the truth, and then he looked at her face, and he was not at all surprised to see that she was staring at him with an expression of stark horror. But even though he was expecting it, that made it no easier to bear. In that moment, Mister Bug felt like he had failed her and that hurt more than he could put into words. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d turned around and run.

Instead, suddenly, she threw herself at him.

No, not at him.

Mister Bug didn’t even have time to react before the akuma landed on his yoyo.

Immediately, everything seemed to slow. It was like a dark veil dropped over the world; colors and lights and sounds faded, and a chill crept over his skin as all warmth was leeched out of him.

He could see Lady Noire staring at him, and her mouth was moving, but –

“Mister Bug.”

He shuddered.

He had never stopped to really _listen_ to Hawkmoth’s voice before. Maybe if he had, he would’ve recognized it. Or maybe not. Hawkmoth sounded like Gabriel Agreste at his kindest, and that was not a voice that Adrien was often given. No, this was a Gabriel Agreste at his most persuasive, dripping with fake kindness and an empathy he was incapable of feeling.

But his innocent victims wouldn’t know that, not with the underlying power of a miraculous at work.

“You’ve been wronged by those around you,” Hawkmoth murmured, low and soft like he was speaking right in Mister Bug’s ear.

“I’ve been wronged by _you_ ,” Mister Bug spat. Or at least, he thought he was speaking out loud. Maybe he was just saying it in his head.

Lady Noire grabbed his shoulders. Her mouth was still moving, but he could barely hear her. She sounded like she was miles away instead of inches away. He wanted to comfort her, but he couldn’t even bring himself to lift his hands to touch her.

“Of course you have,” Hawkmoth agreed, clear as day. “But I’m not the only one, am I? You’ve been ignored all these years. No one ever listens to you, do they? Least of all Ladybug.”

That wasn’t – that wasn’t true, but –

“You could take revenge against those who have wronged you,” Hawkmoth said. “I can give you the power to make _everyone_ notice you.”

It made no sense. He knew that.

Yet that didn’t lessen the seductive nature of those words. 

His grief, his anger, his helplessness…

He was tired of feeling this way.

Tired of being the one left behind.

Tired of being the one ordered around.

Tired of being the one no one listened to.

Tired of being the one who never got what he wanted.

Tired of being Adrien Agreste.

“Chat! Please!” Lady Noire was crying. He looked right in her face. Her beautiful face. 

And he felt nothing.

The deep pit in his stomach seemed to rise up, making him feel like he was falling.

“Say yes, Mister Bug,” Hawkmoth coaxed. “What I want in return is a pittance compared to what you want. You’ll be the one on top for once. You’ll be able to do whatever you want, whenever you want, to whoever you want. No one will be able to stop you. Your luck will be unparalleled.”

“I won’t become Chat Blanc,” Mister Bug whispered. It was his final defiance.

Even now, he could not do that to his lady.

Hawkmoth laughed: high, cold, and triumphant. The world deepened further. Lady Noire’s tear-filled eyes were swallowed up by a wave of pure, unfathomable darkness. 

The only thing that cut through was Hawkmoth’s last words.

“Of course not… _Malchance_.”


	15. In sync

Lady Noire staggered back, horrified, as a black light swallowed Mister Bug up. When it faded, he didn’t look anything like her sweet kitty. The akuma staring back at her looked like some mutated version of a ladybug, complete with antennae and mandibles that stuck out from beneath a mop of blond hair and black cat ears. The two antennae waved slowly in the air, perfectly in sync.

“Chat,” she breathed.

A shrill beep cut through the air, nearly giving Lady Noire a heart attack. She looked down at the ring on her finger, stunned, and saw that there were just four pads left. But even as she watched, her ring beeped again and dropped to three.

Then to two.

She turned and ran.

Her foot had barely crossed the threshold before there was a flash of green light and her transformation wore away; Marinette caught Plagg and bolted down the alley. She clutched the kwami to her chest to hide him and ducked out into the passing crowds, hoping against hope that neither the akuma nor Hawkmoth had caught sight of her.

“Marinette! Marinette, stop!” Plagg croaked out.

Heart thudding in her ears, Marinette ducked into another alley. She was trembling as she leaned against the bricks and looked down at the kwami in her hands. Plagg was so exhausted he could barely sit up, never mind fly. But that didn’t stop him from giving her a fierce glare.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“We were fighting an akuma,” Marinette said shakily. “It hit us with this light that meant we couldn’t detransform, but then it ran away…” She quickly filled Plagg in on what, in retrospect, seemed like a spectacularly _stupid_ plan. Mister Bug’s father must have flipped out when he realized that not only was a miraculous close, but that his own son was wearing it.

Plagg inhaled sharply. “So… his father really _is_ Hawkmoth…” he murmured.

“You guessed?” Marinette said, surprised.

“Some things about that house never added up, but for my chosen’s sake I hoped I was wrong.” Plagg shook his head. Even that small act seemed to drain all of his strength and he collapsed back against her hands.

“Chat was so upset he got akumatized. I was trying to talk to him, but I don’t even think he knew I was there. It was like he was – lost.” She shuddered, remembering the cool, seductive feel of Hawkmoth’s power. She had come within seconds of being akumatized herself, and she would never forget how it had felt.

How _easy_ it was to be consumed by rage or grief or injustice.

“Hawkmoth must have recalled the other akuma in order to akumatize Chat. That’s why you detransformed,” Plagg said. “Everything was frozen for a long time and I had no idea what was going on… then all of a sudden it was like someone flipped a switch and I couldn’t hold it together for more than a minute or two.” He sounded disgusted with himself, and Marinette shook her head.

“It’s not your fault, Plagg. I thought that might happen, actually.” That was why she’d brought cheese and cookies with her – which she now realized had been dissolved along with the pastries. Marinette sighed.

She should’ve been paying more attention, she thought regretfully. But Hawkmoth had acted so _fast_.

“Then it’s not your fault either,” Plagg said, and she looked at him, startled.

“I know,” she said, but she wasn’t sure she agreed. “Plagg, what are we going to do without the Ladybug miraculous? I can’t purify anything!”

Plagg sighed. “You’ll have to get the akumatized object and break it. Once Mister Bug is back, he can capture the akuma and purify it.”

“But it was his yoyo,” Marinette said, distressed.

“Damn.” Plagg thought for a moment. “Then once you break the yoyo and he’s freed, he’ll have to detransform so you can transform. That should fix the yoyo. But you’ll have to be quick so that the akuma doesn’t get Chat again in the meantime. I can protect him if I have to, but –”

“But then I won’t be able to fix the damage,” Marinette concluded, gently shifting the kwami’s weight to one hand. She rubbed at her aching temples with the other. How had things unraveled so quickly?

“Exactly, so you’re going to have to move fast,” Plagg said grimly. “I don’t know what the kid said to his father, but I can guess. Hawkmoth might have an idea about who you are.”

“What?! But Chat doesn’t even know!”

“I know. Let’s just say Hawkmoth’s not stupid and that’s working against us. So let’s start with some cheese and quickly. I’m starving!”


	16. First kiss

Marinette got more than a few odd looks as she headed home. Not surprising, considering that she was wearing her pajamas outside again – she had gotten ready for bed last night before heading out for patrol. She ignored the looks as best she could and, when she reached the bakery, waited for her maman to be busy with customers before she snuck inside. 

Perhaps she had used up her quota of bad luck today, because she made it up to the apartment without being seen and headed right for the fridge.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think we have Camembert,” she said, pulling the door open. Her father sometimes baked with cheese, but lately he had been on a kick for lemon. She surveyed the available contents.

“I’ll take anything,” Plagg said, licking his lips, and so Marinette grabbed a block of cheddar and set it on the counter. She barely got her fingers out of the way before Plagg literally dove at the cheese, greedily taking huge bites and swallowing them whole.

It was a little scary, honestly. 

She turned away from the carnage, wrapping her arms around herself and taking a slow, measured breath. She didn’t think, _couldn’t_ think –

Chat Blanc’s _face_ , the way he’d looked _at_ her, the way he’d _cried_ -

And now Mister Bug’s _face_ , that lost, _empty_ expression, the way he’d looked _through_ her –

Marinette shuddered, sharp panic lodging itself somewhere in the vicinity of her heart and lungs. Nightmares were not new to her, not since she’d accepted her miraculous, but she’d experienced a steep upsurge in bad dreams after fixing the timeline. Chat Blanc existed only in her memories, and perhaps in the Rabbit miraculous, but she had the feeling she wouldn’t be so lucky when it came to this akuma.

She forcefully wrenched her mind away from that train of thought and whispered, “I need to get dressed” more to herself than to Plagg. Then she’d have to come up with a plan. She didn’t think she could do this alone. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and stared at it for a long moment in deliberation.

Chat’s father was Hawkmoth. That was all she knew right now, but it was enough. Even if Mister Bug detransformed in private, when they unmasked Hawkmoth – and they would have to in order to get the Butterfly miraculous – then she would know who Hawkmoth was. By extension, that meant she would know who Chat was. It wasn’t how she’d wanted to find out; she wished that she and Chat could have had the chance to tell each other in private.

If she texted Alya right now and told Alya that Ladybug needed her help, there was a chance Alya would put two and two together. 

Marinette hoped she wouldn’t. Chat deserved to know first. 

But if this was what it took to save him –

Unbidden, her mind flashed back to their first kiss. The feeling of Chat’s lips against hers, particularly that split second when he’d kissed her _back_ after the control had worn off, had plagued her for weeks even when she tried to forget about it; despite that, she had never regretted kissing him to save him from Dark Cupid. She would have done anything to save her partner then.

She would do anything to save him now.

Like it or not, she had to take the chance.

She quickly typed out a text to Alya before she could second guess herself too much, then grabbed another block of cheese – mozzarella, this time – for Plagg. He attacked the second block every bit as ravenously as Marinette scurried upstairs. There, she shed her pajamas, tossed on a pair of jeans and a red t-shirt, then dug into her closet and pulled out the miraculous box.

Fifteen miraculous greeted her when she opened it.

Marinette didn’t let herself dwell too long on the right choices: she took the Fox, the Turtle, the Bee, and the Snake out. She had asked Alya to bring Nino and Chloé in her text. Those three had the most experience with their miraculous and that was what they needed right now. If she thought they needed Sass’s power, she could fuse the Black Cat miraculous and the Snake miraculous together. 

She looked down at the empty spaces where the Butterfly and Peacock belonged and felt a renewed surge of determination that eased the fear and panic a bit.

Before night fell, she would have those miraculous back where they belonged and her partner back at her side.

Hawkmoth was the scum of the earth for akumatizing his own son, and she was going to make sure he regretted it.


	17. Future

Alya blinked once. Twice.

Then she turned to Nino and silently thrust her phone under his nose.

“Alya, what the -?” Nino jerked back in surprise, nearly knocking the brim of his hat against her phone. 

“Read this. I think I need new glasses,” Alya said. “Because this can’t possibly say what I _think_ it says.”

Nino’s eyebrows furrowed, but he took her phone and adjusted his own glasses to squint at it. When his mouth dropped open, she knew for sure that she wasn’t going crazy.

Marinette, of all people, had texted to say that Ladybug had dropped by the bakery to say that she needed the help of Rena Rouge, Carapace and Queen Bee.

It was… unexpected, to say the least. Marinette tolerated conversation about Paris’s superheroes, but she didn’t really participate – unless someone was badmouthing Chat Noir, in which case Marinette could and would give a tongue lashing like none other. She was pretty protective of him for someone who pretended like she really had no interest in superheroes. It seemed odd that Ladybug would go to her for help.

But maybe it made sense. Marinette hadn’t shown up, which meant she was probably sick today. It would be unlike Ladybug to just show up at Collège Françoise Dupont, and it wasn’t as though Ladybug had Alya’s cell phone number. She wouldn’t have Nino’s or Chloé’s either, for that matter. Dropping by the bakery for Marinette’s help was a smart move, though Alya would expect no less of Ladybug.

“I thought we were off the list of helpers,” Nino said finally, face scrunched up in confusion. He looked unfairly adorable. If they hadn’t been in the middle of class, Alya would’ve leaned over and kissed him.

“I thought we were too,” Alya said, taking her phone back. It had taken her a little while to come to terms with that; she still had vivid daydreams about strangling Hawkmoth for taking such an amazing opportunity away from her. Unfortunately, Ladybug was right when she said that it was just too dangerous.

But now Ladybug needed them badly enough that she was willing to risk those dangers.

Alya looked meaningfully at Nino.

Something had to be wrong.

And it had to be big. Threatening-the-future-of-Paris big.

She snuck a quick glance at the clock. There was only five minutes left until the period ended, but those five minutes seemed to drag. Nino seemed equally fidgety, drumming his fingers on his desk, and bouncing his knee. Madame Bustier shot them both chastising looks but said nothing.

When the bell finally rang, Alya launched herself out of her seat and across the aisle. She grabbed Chloé’s arm and dragged Chloé in close.

“Excuse you,” Chloé said, startled and trying to pull away.

“Ladybug needs us,” Alya hissed in Chloé’s ear. Frankly, if it were up to Alya, Chloé would probably be the last person she’d ever trust with a miraculous. After all the crap Chloé had pulled, Alya didn’t really understand why Ladybug kept coming back to her. Surely there had to be a better holder for the Bee miraculous out there?

But she had to give Chloé credit where it was due. The second Chloé heard that, the fight drained out of her. Her shoulders tensed and her chin went up, and she gave a tight nod. She looked fully ready to kick some ass, and that was an attitude that Alya could get on board with.

“Then what are we waiting for?” Chloé said coolly, slinging her purse over her shoulder and sauntering towards the door.

Alya rolled her eyes at Chloé’s back and took her bag from Nino as they followed. The three of them quickly made their way down the hallway and out the front doors. No one stopped them, and Alya had to admit that was one benefit to having Chloé around. She was all for helping Ladybug save the city, but she’d really rather not get in trouble for skipping in the process.

“Where do we go?” Nino asked as they headed for the gates.

“The bakery, I guess. Marinette didn’t say,” Alya said.

“Marinette?” Chloé repeated, turning to eye them.

“She texted me on Ladybug’s behalf,” Alya told her.

Chloé’s lips pursed; she said nothing, but she did make a soft ‘hum’ sound.

“No need to go to the bakery. I’m right here.”

“Ladybug!” Alya cried, already spinning around. “You – oh!” She stepped back as Lady Noire, not Ladybug, jumped off the wall of the school and landed on the sidewalk in front of them.

Lady Noire stretched her hands out to three of them and said plaintively, “I need your help. Mister Bug’s been akumatized.”


	18. Close Call

It didn’t take her long to fill Alya, Nino and Chloé in on what had happened. Naturally, Alya was completely _horrified_ -

“I can’t believe there was an akuma last night and I missed it!”

“Alya,” Nino said, facepalming.

“And while they had swapped miraculous too! I only have a handful of photos on the blog of Lady Noire and Mister Bug and I missed an opportunity to get more because I was baby-sitting!” Alya ranted, gesturing frantically. “My sisters will _never_ be able to pay me back for this!”

“Alya!” Lady Noire grabbed Alya’s shoulders, startling Alya into silence.

Over Alya’s shoulder, Chloé rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Seriously, Césaire? Way to miss the fact that Hawkmoth is Chat Noir’s father.” She screwed her face up as she spoke, looking as appalled by that information as Lady Noire felt. 

“Dude, I can’t even imagine what that’s like,” Nino said quietly. 

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Chloé is right,” Lady Noire said. “Alya, I will pose for _all the pictures you want_ in whatever miraculous want if you’ll just help. I _have_ to get Chat back!” She didn’t mean to yell; it just happened.

All three of her classmates quieted, staring at her.

“Okay,” Alya said at last, her voice softening. “It’s okay, Ladybug. Err, Lady Noire. We’ll get him back, okay?” She reached up and put a hand over one of Lady Noire’s, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Okay,” Lady Noire whispered. She suddenly realized her hands were digging into Alya’s shoulders. Mortified, she drew back with a stammered apology.

Alya waved it off. “It’s nothing. Didn’t even hurt. What’s your plan?”

“My – my plan?” Lady Noire repeated, eyes flicking between them. Chloé narrowed her eyes, while Alya and Nino exchanged looks.

It was Nino who said, “ _You_ don’t have a plan?”

“I’m working on it! I don’t know what kind of akuma he is, or what he can do, but I –” He could destroy the world. Her voice ground to a halt, panic tightening her throat. Once upon a time, Chat Blanc _had_ destroyed the world. Would an akumatized Mister Bug do the same thing?

“Hey, we’ll figure it out together,” Alya said kindly. “That’s what we’re here for, right?”

Mutely, Lady Noire nodded. She hoped that they didn’t notice the way her hands trembled as she pulled out the Bee, Fox, and Turtle miraculouses and passed them out to their holders. 

“Pollen, buzz on!”

“Trixx, let’s pounce!”

“Wayzz, shell on!”

Three flashes of light later, Queen Bee, Rena Rouge and Carapace stood before her. Yet Lady Noire didn’t feel any better. 

All she could think about was how _wrong_ it was that she was the black-clad figure amongst them, not Chat.

“Alright, first things first. We need to find that akuma,” Queen Bee said briskly. “He’s after the Black Cat miraculous, right? So that means we can use Lady Noire as bait to make him come running right to us.”

Rena Rouge raised an eyebrow. “Color me impressed, Queen Bee. I didn’t know you were capable of thinking of anything besides yourself.”

“Funny, I didn’t know you were capable of thinking of anything besides your blog,” Queen Bee sneered, and Rena Rouge flushed.

“That’s not – I’m sorry,” she said to Ladybug, embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to disregard everything you told us.”

Lady Noire shook her head. “It’s fine. I don’t care. Queen Bee is right.” And wow, were pigs flying? That was the second time in five minutes she’d said that Chloé Bourgeois was right. This whole Mister Bug getting akumatized thing really had thrown her for a loop.

“Okay, you’re bait, but that’s setting us up for a potential close call,” Carapace pointed out. “We have to be smart about this.”

“And that’s where this comes in,” Lady Noire said, pulling the Snake miraculous from her pocket. She toyed with it for a moment, trying to think past the panicked haze coating her thoughts, before holding it out to Carapace.

“Me?” he said, surprised. “But I thought –”

“I need you to unify them,” she told him. “I’ll explain how, and how the power works. If things go wrong, and they probably will without Chat, then we’re going to need someone with a cool head to use this.” Which, in all honesty, excluded Rena Rouge and Queen Bee in even the best of times, and Lady Noire was in no shape to be unbiased right now.

Carapace nodded, determined, and took the Snake miraculous. “Whatever you need, Lady Noire. We’re here for you.”


	19. Rain

When the lights cleared from his vision, Rena Rouge, Lady Noire and Queen Bee were staring at him. He took a quick look down at his new suit, which was a combination of teal and green – the colors flowed together seamlessly. He shifted his shoulders and felt the comforting weight of the shield on his back. On his opposite arm was the Snake miraculous, which Lady Noire pointed to.

“You’re comfortable with what Sass told you?” she said.

He nodded. “Yeah, seems straight forward enough.”

“Good… Xuanwu.”

“What?” he said, the question echoed by Rena Rouge.

Lady Noire’s smile was quick and sad. “In Chinese mythology, one of the constellations is depicted as a turtle entwined together with a snake. It’s also known as the ‘Black Warrior’. Seemed fitting, don’t you think?”

“I like it,” Rena Rouge said. Her appreciative look at the new costume made Xuanwu puff up.

“Good with me. Now, what’s our plan?”

“Lady Noire needs to draw the akuma to us,” Queen Bee said. “The rest of us should hide until it shows up and then we can ambush it.”

“And when it does come, you need to activate Second Chance,” Lady Noire told Xuanwu. 

“Got it,” he said with a nod. He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of Lady Noire putting herself in danger, but it was the best plan they had. The only alternative he could think of was offering to swap miraculouses with Lady Noire, and he was pretty sure she would flat-out refuse. Judging by how she reacted when she talked about her partner, it might even send her into a panic attack. That was the last thing they needed.

It began to rain as they got themselves into position; Lady Noire staked out an empty rooftop a few blocks away from the school. Xuanwu wasn’t sure where Rena Rouge or Queen Bee were, but he hid himself behind a huge billboard with Adrien’s face on it. 

Within a couple of minutes, a low humming sound filled the air. The hair on the back of Xuanwu’s neck stood up.

Lady Noire’s head was moving; she was scanning the skyline to find out where the sound was coming from.

Xuanwu was pretty sure he spotted the akuma first.

It – Mister Bug – Chat Noir – was coming from his left, Lady Noire’s right. Xuanwu’s stomach tightened when he saw the akuma for the first time. He quickly reached down and flicked the Snake miraculous the way that Lady Noire had shown him.

“Second Chance,” he whispered. The resulting glow from the miraculous told him that it had worked.

They now had five minutes to make things happen.

“Chat, please don’t do this,” Lady Noire said as the akuma touched down. 

“Don’t do what?” the akuma asked. “What have you ever done to make me want to stay by your side, Ladybug? You ignored me, you treated me as a disposable sidekick, you don’t care about me. _No one_ cares about me.” Its voice was low and rough, which somehow made what it was saying sound that much worse, Xuanwu winced. Lady Noire looked gutted.

“That’s not – I never –” she stammered.

“Don’t lie to me. We both know that it’s true.” The akuma touched down on the roof, folding its wings against its back. The humming sound stopped. “I’m tired of being left behind. It’s time that I did something for myself. Malchance is _no one’s_ last choice!”

And it leapt, suddenly, at Lady Noire. Queen Bee appeared as though from no where and threw herself at Lady Noire. She got there first, knocking Lady Noire out of the way. But that meant the akuma impacted Queen Bee instead. Queen Bee was thrown halfway across the rooftop, and was saved from falling off the side completely by Rena Rouge’s quick interference –

Instead, Queen Bee hit Rena Rouge and both girls went down in a heap –

Lady Noire reached for her baton, but her movements were slow and awkward –

Malchance grabbed Lady Noire around the throat and pulled her close, whispering something that made Lady Noire start to cry –

“Shit,” Xuanwu muttered, grabbing the Snake miraculous. He quickly pulled the snake’s head back.

The world seemed to shake.

He blinked.

The next thing he knew, Lady Noire was alone on the rooftop with the akuma approached from her right and Xuanwu’s left.

Xuanwu gritted his teeth. This was going to be a lot harder than he’d hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can read more about the origin of Xuanwu's name here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tortoise


	20. Déjà vu

“Okay, this isn’t working.”

Lady Noire jumped, startled, as Xuanwu landed right next to her. The grim look on Xuanwu’s face made her heart thump a bit harder; she had seen that expression before.

“You’re having déjà vu. You’ve had to use Second Chance already, haven’t you?” she asked.

Xuanwu nodded. “This is our sixth try,” he informed her.

Her jaw dropped. “Sixth time?! Are you serious?” She glanced quickly towards where the akuma was approaching, knowing they were short on time. Xuanwu’s appearance seemed to have slowed its progression towards the rooftop, but it was only a matter of time before the confrontation would happen.

“Very serious, unfortunately,” he said with a sigh. “To say that things haven’t been going well is an understatement.”

“What’s happening?” Lady Noire asked.

“Well… basically, nothing goes well for us. Malchance kicks our butts every time.”

“Malchance?” she whispered.

He jerked his chin towards the akuma and grimaced.

“ _How_ does he kick our butts?” she asked, forcing herself not to dwell on what that name might mean.

“That’s the thing. I can’t really figure it out. He’s a skilled fighter, just like Chat Noir, but he hasn’t really fought anyone yet. It’s like –“ Xuanwu gestured.

“Like?”

“Like – like he touches someone and they can’t do anything right. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but I don’t know how else to explain it,” he said, frustrated. “Rena Rouge isn’t clumsy, but after Malchance touched her she tripped and fell off the roof. Things like that.”

Lady Noire stared at the hovering akuma, her mind working furiously. Her shoulders relaxed ever so slightly as things clicked into place.

“Oh,” she breathed.

Xuanwu pointed at her. “That’s what Alya calls your ‘I figured it out’ face. What did you figure out?”

“Bad luck. It’s literally in his name! He’s infusing whatever he touches with bad luck,” she hissed. “Don’t let him touch you!”

“That’s – huh,” Xuanwu said, looking reluctantly impressed as Malchance touched down on the rooftop. Far from Xuanwu’s claim that the akuma hadn’t really physically challenged them much thus far, Malchance immediately raced towards them.

Lady Noire and Xuanwu scattered in opposite directions. She wasn’t really sure what happened after that. One moment she was dodging out of the way and the next moment Rena Rouge was there, and she belatedly realized that they hadn’t warned either Queen Bee or Rena Rouge as Malchance drew an arm back and viciously punched Rena Rouge in the belly – 

Xuanwu landed beside her on the rooftop and grabbed her arm. Lady Noire blinked at him in shock. The akuma – Chat – was getting closer, and this wasn’t at all what they had planned.

“The akuma is named Malchance and you figured out that it uses bad luck as a weapon I’m going to warn Rena Rouge and Queen Bee don’t let it touch you!” He spit out quickly, then was gone as just as quickly as he had come.

She kept on blinking.

“Ladybug!” Malchance hissed, alighting on the rooftop. “I see your allies have abandoned you. Perhaps they got tired of being treated like afterthoughts.”

The venom and hatred in its eyes made her heart ache. There was no sign of her sweet kitty in those eyes. 

“If I ever made you feel like an afterthought, I’m sorry,” she said quietly, fumbling for her baton. She couldn’t exactly say that she had never treated Chat that way. Not after her recent realizations about Chat and Master Fu. 

In a way, this akuma was partially her fault.

She clenched her fingers around the baton until her hand shook from the strain.

“You’re sorry,” Malchance mocked, mandibles clicking and wings fluttering. The humming sound they made was an annoying, high-pitched whine that made her cat ears hurt. 

“Sorry I’m about to kick your ass!” she cried, swinging out the baton. It didn’t have the same impact as a yoyo; she felt the shock of it all the way up her arms. Hitting Malchance was like hitting a brick wall. Her bones rattled with the after-effects and she gasped for breath.

Malchance gave a mocking laugh-wheeze and kicked off the ground, flying towards her – so fast, too fast. Mindful of Xuanwu’s warning, she ducked back and threw up the baton. The akuma leaned over her, sneering, and whispered a handful of poisonous words that made her heart stutter.

And then it grabbed her wrist.

Lady Noire swore and kicked out. She was shocked when her foot landed, hitting Malchance’s chest, and even more shocked when Malchance seemed to slip. The akuma stumbled back and fell, and she rolled over and sat up unharmed just in time to see her teammates approaching.


	21. Reveal

“How did you do that?” Rena Rouge blurted out, shocked.

“I – I don’t know,” Lady Noire said, scrambling to her feet.

Queen Bee sized her up with a thoughtful look, thinking about what she knew of the Black Cat miraculous, then smiled. “It’s your bad luck. Comes with the miraculous, right? Since you already have it, so it can’t get any worse. Malchance’s powers don’t work on you.”

They all looked at each other.

“Okay, new plan. The rest of us are providing back-up from a distance _only_ ,” said Xuanwu. “If you think you can handle it.” His expression, combined with the way he looked at Lady Noire just then, made Queen Bee narrow her eyes. Lady Noire had briefly touched on how Second Chance worked. Clearly _something_ had happened in those previous iterations, but what?

“I can do it,” Lady Noire said determinedly. “We don’t have a Lucky Charm so we can’t rely on that, but here’s what we’re going to do.” Quickly, she whispered her plan to each of them.

“Got it,” Rena Rouge said, pulling her flute off her back. “Mirage!”

Malchance roared its displeasure as it got to its feet and realized that the rooftop was suddenly flooded with dozens and dozens of Lady Noire copies. Queen Bee backed off to a safe distance and took her top into her hand, waiting for the right moment.

“Shell-ter!” Xuanwu shouted, thrusting his shield into the air. The resulting barrier left Rena Rouge on the outside, meaning that she didn’t have to worry about Malchance targeting her and they didn’t have to worry about Malchance taking off –

But Queen Bee had no such luxury.

She swore under her breath as Malchance made a dive for her; after all, her yellow suit stood out like a beacon amongst all of the black. She dodged out of the way and Lady Noire came out of no where, sliding between the copes to slam the end of her baton in Malchance’s stomach. Then she ducked down and threw her leg out, sweeping Malchance’s feet out from under it. 

Malchance growled and swung itself up and onto Lady Noire in a breathakingly fast move, pinning her to the ground and starting an impromptu wrestling match. Queen Bee couldn’t hear what was being said, but she caught a glimpse of the look on Lady Noire’s face and knew that it wasn’t good. Those wide, teary blue eyes were enough to tug at even Queen Bee’s heart.

“Queen Bee! Hurry! I’m going to detransform soon!” Xuanwu yelled.

“I’m on it. Venom!” Queen Bee activated her spinning top and stepped closer, watching them closely. At the exact right moment, she swung her hand down.

Malchance’s shriek – a high-pitched, _furious_ whine that made her teeth ache – was cut off when it froze. Lady Noire sprang up, panting for breath, and quickly grabbed the yoyo.

And then she hesitated.

Queen Bee waited expectantly; her miraculous beeped.

Lady Noire did nothing.

“What are you waiting for?” Queen Bee demanded finally. Out of the corner of her eye, there was a flash of light as Sass appeared in front of Carapace. They had less than four minutes before Queen Bee’s power wore off; she had no interest in seeing how hard Malchance was going to come up swinging.

“If I free the akuma, I’ll see who Chat is,” Lady Noire said, very quietly. “I – I don’t know – I wish we could have –”

“There’s no time for wishes,” Queen Bee said harshly. “You want to save him, right?”

“Of course!”

“You want him to know that you care about him? That nothing Hawkmoth told him is true?” Queen Bee went on. Her miraculous beeped another warning. Three minutes.

Lady Noire nodded. “Obviously.”

“Then break that yoyo,” Queen Bee commanded. Rena Rouge and Carapace both promptly detransformed, and the barrier and copies dissolved.

“But...” Still, Lady Noire hesitated.

Queen Bee threw up her hands. “Isn’t having secrets between you what led you here in the first place? Because you couldn’t be honest with each other? At least now you _can_ be honest.”

“I didn’t know you were capable of being right so many times in one day, Chloé,” Lady Noire said.

Queen Bee put her hands on her hips and scowled as a third beep echoed through the air. Two minutes.

Lady Noire smiled back and, without any further hesitation, cracked the yoyo in half.

The black butterfly fluttered out.

And before them, the akuma’s visage melted away to reveal the face of Adrien Agreste.


	22. Realization

First there was nothing, and then there was _rage_ , and then there was a feeling that could only be described as the world’s worst emotional hangover.

Adrien pried an eye open, feeling sick to his stomach. The first thing he saw was Tikki, who looked exhausted. But right behind Tikki, he was utterly baffled to see, were Queen Bee and Lady Noire. They were standing right in front of him. Under any other circumstances, it would’ve been hilarious to see the identical looks of shock on their faces. 

As it was, he felt only the slow, cold, creeping sense of _dread_ as realization set in.

He’d been akumatized.

By his own father.

“Oh, Adrien,” Queen Bee breathed, her face crumbling. He knew then that she knew, and he wasn’t surprised when she fell to her knees and pulled him into a tight hug. 

“The miraculous. I need the Ladybug miraculous,” Lady Noire said, her expression closing off. 

His stomach sank. In spite of Queen Bee’s tight grip, he quickly took off the earrings and handed them to her.

Would he get the ring back?

Or had she decided he was an utter failure of a holder?

“Plagg, claws in,” Lady Noire said.

Adrien froze.

Alya made a choked sound. 

Green light swirled around Lady Noire, turning her back into –

“Marinette?” Nino gasped.

“Oh my god,” Queen Bee whispered. Adrien didn’t need to look at her face to know that Queen Bee was putting a ton of clues together. She detransformed seconds later, yellow light coalescing into Pollen.

He didn’t react; he just kept staring dumbly at Marinette.

Marinette, who didn’t look at any of them as she put the Ladybug miraculous back into her ears. Marinette, who pulled a cookie out of her purse and gave it to Tikki. Marinette, who slid the Black Cat miraculous off her finger and held it out to Adrien.

It took Chloé’s elbow being driven into Adrien’s stomach for him to react, and he took the miraculous with shaking fingers.

Tikki finished chowing down on the cookie and nodded.

“Tikki, spots on!”

Even before the red light died away, Ladybug was moving. She whipped out her yoyo and took off after the rapidly retreating akuma – it was almost out of sight by now – leaving a heavy silence behind.

Alya finally broke it. “I am so _fucking stupid_.”

“Not gonna argue with you there,” Chloé said, sitting back on her heels. 

For once in her life, Alya was too shell-shocked to come up with a good retort.

“Adrien, honey, put your ring back on,” Chloé said in a very, very gentle voice. Alya and Nino both shot her startled looks.

Adrien just blinked at her.

Chloé sighed and took the ring from his palm, pushing it on his finger.

Immediately, Plagg appeared and launched himself at Adrien’s face. “Kid! Finally! You’re okay!” He started examining Adrien from head to toe, muttering increasingly dire threats against Hawkmoth.

Okay wasn’t really the word Adrien would have used. He felt like someone had thrown him off a building without the benefit of a miraculous suit for protection.

“I can’t believe it,” Alya said, more to herself than to anyone else. “Ladybug has been sitting beside me the whole time and I didn’t notice. No wonder Marinette doesn’t like talking about Ladybug and Chat Noir!”

“Knowing Marinette, she was probably paranoid you would figure it out,” Nino said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Of the four of them, he seemed to be the most adept at taking the revelation in stride – but Adrien could tell that it had still thrown him for a loop.

“Forget Marinette. Adrien, are you okay?” Chloé asked, still in that too-gentle tone; she cupped his face and made Adrien look at her.

“No,” Adrien said. The sight of her concerned expression was too much, and he could feel tears rushing to his eyes. “My father is Hawkmoth, I just got akumatized, and Ladybug hates me.”

“Hey now, your lady doesn’t hate you,” Plagg objected, having apparently finished his examination of Adrien. 

“Well, she should,” Adrien said, gulping hard.

“It’s not your fault, Dude,” Nino said kindly. “Your father’s a dick. We all know that.”

“Let’s kill him,” Chloé said suddenly.

Nino studied her for a moment before nodding. “Deal.”

“Guys,” Alya said. “I hate to be the voice of reason, but…” She trailed off. “You know what, I can’t even think of a way to finish that sentence. Let’s kill him. He deserves it.”

“Finally, people who see reason!” Plagg proclaimed dramatically, and Adrien gave a tiny smile even as the tears started rolling down his cheeks.


	23. Chin scratches

The akuma was fast, but Ladybug was faster.

Her yoyo whipped out and she caught the akuma about two blocks away from where she’d left her teammates. She landed on the roof and stood there for a moment, catching her breath, staring down at her yoyo. At least now, she could be sure that Chat was safe – from this akuma, anyway. No telling if more were going to show up. She sighed and slid her finger overtop of the yoyo to open it.

“Bye bye, little butterfly,” she whispered, watching the purified butterfly go. She and Chat had tried following them before, hoping that it would lead them back to Hawkmoth, but it had never worked. The butterflies always seemed to fade away before they really went anywhere; Tikki said it was a defense mechanism designed to keep anyone from doing exactly what she and Chat were trying to do.

She sank slowly to the ground, her breath quickening. Without a Lucky Charm, she couldn’t cast her miraculous cure. But so far as she could tell, Malchance hadn’t done much damage – physically, anyway.

Emotionally?

Ladybug buried her face in her hands.

Adrien. Adrien was Chat Noir.

That meant that Gabriel Agreste was Hawkmoth.

It fit. Of course it fit. She and Master Fu had suspected as much, but then Gabriel had gotten akumatized… of course, she realized now that Gabriel had done that on purpose to throw suspicion off himself. Clever. It was hard to know about Master Fu, but that had been enough to drop Gabriel from Ladybug’s list of suspects.

And Chat… sweet Chat.

Hot tears began to spill down her cheeks. 

Adrien just couldn’t catch a break, could he? On top of everything else in his insanely busy life, he was Chat Noir. Her dorky, sweet, silly partner who lived for chin scratches and day-old pastries. 

It was too much.

“Tikki, spots off,” she said in a quivery voice.

In a flash of red light, Marinette was back to her jeans and tank top and Tikki had materialized. Looking even more tired than Plagg, Tikki slowly sank down until she was resting on Marinette’s knee. She looked up at Marinette with a sorrowful expression.

“I’m sorry, Marinette.”

Marinette gave a half laugh, half sob. “Oh, Tikki. You have nothing to apologize for. I feel like this is all my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” Tikki said gently. “You didn’t know.”

“That’s the problem, Tikki! I didn’t know. There’s always been this… this disconnect between me and Chat and… and I didn’t do anything about it even when I should have.” Marinette sniffed and dug around in her purse, producing a couple more cookies. It was the least she could do considering what Tikki had been through.

Tikki sighed. “I won’t deny that you and Chat have been on different wavelengths for a while, and part of that is because of Master Fu,” she said. “It shouldn’t have happened the way that it did.”

Marinette had nothing to say to that. She cried silently as Tikki ate her cookies, until her face was sticky with tears and her nose was running. She felt hot and tired and _miserable_ with the weight of everything Malchance had said to her. She would never forget those words for as long as she lived, because she knew it was how Chat… how _Adrien_ really felt, untempered by his usually polite demeanor.

When Tikki was finished with her cookies, and looked a bit better, she rose up off of Marinette’s knee and said, “I didn’t want you to find out this way, but now that it’s happened you have to deal with it.”

“What?” Marinette said, confused.

“Chat needs you right now,” Tikki said kindly. “He’s still your kitty, and you’re still his lady.”

“But… he’s Adrien. And I’m Marinette,” Marinette said in a tiny voice. “Doesn’t that change everything?”

Tikki looked her square in the eyes. “Does it?”

Marinette opened her mouth… and then she closed it.

She realized she didn’t know the answer.

“Adrien and Marinette are friends. Chat and Ladybug are friends. Right now, you need your friends and so does he,” Tikki told her.

It sounded so simple.

Could it be that easy?

She wiped her face, dragging her fingers under her eyes. “Do I look like a raccoon?”

“Let’s just say you really should’ve washed your make-up off last night,” Tikki said tactfully, and Marinette gave another small, slightly hysterical laugh.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” she asked Tikki.

Tikki smiled grimly. “Don’t worry about me. I'm tired, but I can handle it.”

“Okay. Tikki, spots on!”


	24. Post reveal pre-relationship

“What do we do now?” Alya asked.

Adrien wiped his face with his hand, unsure of what to tell her. With Nino on one side and Chloé on the other, both of them hugging him as tightly as they could, he was feeling a little better. Alya was standing before them, keeping an eye out – either for more akuma or for Ladybug or maybe for both, Adrien wasn’t sure. Plagg, Pollen, Wayzz and Trixx were all curled up in Adrien’s lap.

Their combined support meant more than he could say.

“I would advise against killing Hawkmoth,” said Wayzz.

“Spoilsport,” Trixx muttered.

“I’m with Trixx, for the record,” Chloé said.

Wayzz sighed. “That would draw more scrutiny than any of us want,” he pointed out. “Chat Noir’s and Ladybug’s identities are not known to the general public, but Queen Bee’s, Carapace’s, and Rena Rouge’s are. You would all undoubtedly be suspects in the murder.”

Alya frowned and scuffed her foot against the rooftop. “I have to admit, my parents would be pretty mad if I was a suspect in a murder.”

“Mine too,” Nino admitted.

“Then what do we do? Out him as Hawkmoth?” Alya said. 

Adrien contemplated that for a moment as the conversation continued without him. A very small part of him wanted to resolve this quietly, without exposing Hawkmoth – they could take back the miraculouses and just let the villain of Hawkmoth die. It was the part of him that still yearned for his father’s approval: a part that wanted to protect Gabriel from the terrible choices that Gabriel had seen fit to make.

Ruthlessly, he squashed that small part.

Gabriel Agreste was a grown man. Hadn’t he always told Adrien that people had to live by the choices they made? At the time Adrien hadn’t really understood what he meant, but now those words took on a new and sinister meaning. He was almost positive that Gabriel held no remorse for what he had done. 

And even if his father did feel remorse, that didn’t mean he didn’t deserve to be punished after all the people he had hurt…

“Kid?” Plagg whispered, shortly before a little, furry head rubbed against Adrien’s chin. Adrien tilted his head into the nuzzle automatically.

“I’m okay,” he whispered back.

“Really?” Plagg said, sounding skeptical. Not that Adrien could blame him, considering he’d just been akumatized.

“I… I think so. It was the shock of it all, you know?” Adrien kept his voice soft. If he dwelled on what had happened for too long, he knew he’d be way more at risk for being akumatized again. So he didn’t. He pushed it down and focused on his superhero duties.

Because Ladybug would need Chat Noir for this, wouldn’t she?

He didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud, and spoken loudly enough to be heard, until Chloé scoffed.

“Of course she will, you idiot!” she said, gently elbowing Adrien. “You guys will be disgustingly close now. It’s going to be sickening.” Yet she didn’t sound disgusted. If anything, she sounded happy.

“Sickening? No way. We’ve finally advanced to the post reveal, pre-relationship stage! It’s going to be _epic_ ,” Alya cooed, clasping her hands to her chest.

“The… what?” Adrien said, baffled.

Nino shook his head. “Dude, believe me when I say that you _do not want to know_. She’s got, like, a twelve-step program written out when it comes to Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s relationship.”

“Okay,” Adrien said slowly. On a normal day, he would’ve been interested. Now, he just felt raw. Ladybug had shut down. He’d seen it in her face before she ran after the akuma. That was never a good sign. Was it because of everything that had happened or because she was horrified to find out who Chat was? Or all of the above?

“Would you feel better if you were transformed before she came back?” Plagg asked, and he knew Adrien so well it was incredible.

Still, Adrien hesitated. “Did you have enough to eat?”

“I’m fine,” Plagg said, which was not all like him – Adrien only had three pieces of cheese with him, but there were four kwamis to feed. Nino had removed the Snake miraculous after promising to feed Sass later. Alya had produced a couple of granola bars, but that wasn’t much between four hungry kwamis.

But he decided to take Plagg at his word. He suddenly wanted to be Chat Noir right then more than he had ever wanted anything else.

“When Ladybug comes back, we can decide together what we’re going to do next,” he said, interrupting Alya’s and Chloe’s increasingly loud argument.

“Yeah, _we_ will,” Nino said pointedly, clasping Adrien’s shoulder. Adrien smiled at him and put his hand over Nino’s, giving it a squeeze. His father might have been a total piece of shit, but his friends were the best.


	25. Pining

Ladybug saw her friends before they saw her; she wasn’t sure whether it made her a bad person or not that she was relieved to see they had all transformed again… including Chat. Somehow, bad or not, that made it a little easier to land on the rooftop. By that point, they all knew she was there, and she was suddenly facing four masks that were simultaneously familiar and not.

Disregarding Queen Bee, Rena Rouge and Carapace for the moment – she was worried about what they thought, but they were pretty low on her priority list right now – she focused on Chat Noir.

He looked _awful_ , not that she was surprised. Behind the mask, his eyes were red-rimmed and sad. His face was pale and there was a tell-tale slump to his shoulders. His ears were lowered, almost hidden amongst his hair, and his tail drooped. He was the very picture of a sad kitty who had just found out that his father was a supervillain and been akumatized.

Ladybug was pretty sure she could _hear_ her heart breaking.

“Oh Chat,” she said, and ran to him.

He met her halfway, scooping her up in a hug so tight that it would’ve broken ribs had she not been transformed. He ducked down and buried his face in her neck, just like he had before. Only now she understood why he had been sobbing as though his world was ending: because it was.

“Adrien,” she whispered, and somehow, he clutched her tighter.

Over his shoulder, Carapace gave her two thumbs up and said, “We’ll give you guys a minute to yourselves.”

“Wait, what?!” Rena Rouge said. She threw a hand out to indicate Ladybug and Chat. “I’ve put up with like two years of pining and you’re depriving me of the moment when it’s all coming together?!”

Queen Bee rolled her eyes. “Wow, you really do have a one-track mind.”

Carapace just shook his head and took Rena Rouge by the hand, physically dragging her away. Queen Bee sauntered after them, though she did turn her head to look back at Ladybug and narrow her eyes. It was a look that was equal parts a warning and protectiveness: an implicit threat about what might happen if Ladybug screwed this up.

Ladybug got it. She nodded silently before turning her attention back to Chat, running her hands through his hair and gently coaxing him back until she could see his face.

He wasn’t crying, but he wouldn’t look at her either.

“Do you hate me?” he asked suddenly, right when she was still searching for the right words. She almost choked.

“Hate you?!” she exclaimed. “What?”

“You know who I am now, and you ran away,” he mumbled, staring down at the roof.

“I had to catch the akuma. Otherwise, it could’ve circled back,” Ladybug said.

Chat shook his head. “I saw your face, Ladybug. You were –”

“Shocked,” she interrupted. “I was shocked. I mean… maybe once or twice I idly thought about the possibility of Adrien being Chat Noir, but I never really considered it. And then, at the same time, to find out that Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth! I _idolized_ him!”

That, of all things, made Chat look up at her. “Are you okay? I never thought about that.”

“Chat, oh my god.” Ladybug didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “ _I’m_ fine. I’m not the one who got akumatized after finding out about Hawkmoth.”

“No, you just had to deal with me as an akuma,” he said, and she tried her best not to flinch.

But her best must not have been good enough, because Chat narrowed his eyes in a way that was eerily reminiscent of Queen Bee.

“I told you, I’m fine,” she said quickly. “I’m… I’m a little unsettled over what happened… and… and still in shock, I think. It’s going to take me a little bit to wrap my head around everything. I haven’t really processed that everyone knows my identity.” She tried to smile, though it came out more like a grimace. There was probably another breakdown, or at least a panic attack, in her near future.

He looked at her and hesitated.

“What?” she asked, as gently as she could.

“Are we… are we okay?” he asked, and he looked so _scared_ and so _worried_ that her heart broke a second time.

She grabbed him in another fierce hug and whispered in his ear.

“We are _always_ going to be okay, _Chaton_.”


	26. Sacrifices

They sat in a circle, the five of them, with Ladybug at the head. She had her head down and her hands draped loosely over her lap; she looked as exhausted as Chat felt, and his worry for her deepened as the bright afternoon sun caught the shadows in her face and amplified them. No matter how many times she insisted that she was fine, he wasn’t sure he believed her.

If they lost Ladybug…

He forcefully wrenched his mind away from that path, shaking his head at himself. That wasn’t going to happen. Ladybug could get caught up in her own head pretty easily, but right now they had a goal for her to focus on. And Ladybug was never in her element more than when she had a problem to sink her teeth into and fix. 

“What are you shaking your head at?” Queen Bee asked him, and Chat looked at her in surprise.

“Nothing,” he said, and then, when she gave him a skeptical look, added, “I was just wondering what will happen to me after my father goes to jail.”

Ladybug, Rena Rouge, and Carapace all looked at each other like that thought hadn’t occurred to them until now.

Chat sighed. “The only other family I have is my aunt and Félix, but…”

“You can’t live with them!” Ladybug exclaimed. “Félix is horrible!”

He had to smile at that, remembering the glee he’d felt when she punched Félix in the face. Someday, he would have to get the full story of what happened from her. For now, he shrugged.

“I don’t disagree. I don’t want to go live with them; they live in London, and Tante Amélie has made it very clear she doesn’t want to move back to Paris.” The thought of having to leave his friends behind on top of everything else weighed heavily on his shoulders, but what other choice was there? He hadn’t been lying when he said he had no other family – or at least, none that he was aware of. 

“Dude…” Carapace said unhappily.

Chat forced a smile. “It’s fine. We all have to make sacrifices.”

“That’s a pretty big sacrifice,” Rena Rouge said quietly.

“Don’t be stupid, Adrikins,” Queen Bee said, so sharply that Chat jumped.

“What?” he said, blinking.

“As though I would let you move to _London_ ,” Queen Bee said, spitting the word out like it left a bad taste in her mouth. “You’ll live here in Paris with me, at the hotel. You can have your own room with a private balcony for any visitors.” She swung her gaze pointedly towards Ladybug, who promptly had a choking fit.

“That… could actually work, if you think your aunt would agree,” Rena Rouge said. There was no need to ask whether the mayor would be on board with that. Chloé had her father wrapped around her little finger.

“I don’t see why she wouldn’t,” Chat said slowly. He didn’t understand his aunt very well, but he thought that there was probably a way he could get her to agree. Maybe in exchange for something. Gabriel had taken all of Émilie’s possessions after her death. He was positive that his father hadn’t gotten rid of them, so those possessions had to be somewhere. Amélie might be more easily persuaded if he could give her something in return.

“Well, now that that’s established,” Queen Bee said, clapping her hands together. “Ladybug, tell us your plan for defeating Hawkmoth.”

“… Eh?” Ladybug recoiled when she suddenly found herself the focal point of four sets of eyes.

“You don’t have a plan, do you?” Carapace asked after a moment.

“That’s not true,” Ladybug said.

Rena Rouge raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Really?”

“I – I – I’m working on it?” Ladybug mumbled.

“Well, Ladybug doesn’t always have to come up with the plan. We can figure this one out together,” Chat said in her defense. His chest warmed when she shot him a shy smile of thanks, and he dared to reach out and take her hand. Her smile widened and she intertwined their fingers.

They were all quiet for several seconds.

Then Carapace said, “What if we just, like, all attacked at once?” 

“We tried that once and it didn’t work,” Queen Bee pointed out.

“Not just the five of us. _All_ of us,” Carapace said. “We have ten miraculous. Ten against two is pretty damn good odds, even if a few people would be total newbies.”

A thoughtful look crossed Ladybug’s face, and Chat hid a grin. He loved that face. It was a face that meant Ladybug’s beautiful, sharp mind was working furiously.

It was a face that meant Hawkmoth’s days were numbered.


	27. Embrace

Carapace’s idea had merit.

Hawkmoth was older and, arguably, stronger than them. He could also use his power several times without having to detransform in between. So could Mayura. 

But if the two of them could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers…

“Alright,” Ladybug said, and again her four teammates turned to look at her. “I’m going to need you to as my delivery people. Are you up for that?”

“Hell yeah!” Rena Rouge said excitedly, perking up.

“Then come on,” Ladybug said. She had to force herself to let go of Chat’s hand and stand up; no matter how much she wanted to keep holding on just so she had proof that he was here and that he was okay, it wasn’t really feasible to jump across rooftops holding hands.

She led the way back to the bakery, alighting on her balcony and watched as her friends followed suit. Ladybug put her finger over her lips in a bid for silence and crawled through her window. She went to her closet and took out the miraculous box again, then tucked it under her arm and made her way back up onto the balcony. She set the miraculous box on her little table.

This time, when she keyed in her code and lifted the top of it, there were only eleven miraculous remaining inside.

This time, Ladybug took out every last one.

Master Fu would have had a _heart attack_ if he’d known what she was planning. He had always been so resistant to letting even one more miraculous be active, and now she was planning to hand them all out like candy.

But in her heart, she knew this was the right thing to do.

The miraculous were meant to _help_ people, not stay locked away.

“That’s a lot of miraculous,” Carapace said with a low whistle.

Ladybug smiled. “I know. Some of these already have holders.” She sorted through them briskly, putting them into two piles. The Mouse, Ox, Tiger, Goat, Rooster, Dog and Pig ended up in one pile, with the Rabbit, Dragon, Horse, Monkey and, when Carapace handed it over, Snake in another.

Chat pointed to the smaller pile. “Alix, Kagami, Max, Kim, and Luka,” he told the others, pointing to each miraculous.

“What about the others?” Queen Bee asked. She screwed her face up. “Please tell me you’re not giving one of them to Lila.”

“God no,” Ladybug said, horrified. “I – and by I, I mean you – are going to ask Mylène, Ivan, Juleka, Nathaniel, Rose, and Sabrina for help.”

Rena Rouge eyed the miraculous, lips moving silently as she counted, before she said, “We’re one person short.”

“We’ll go with Marc,” Ladybug said confidently. He was dating Nathaniel and had spent tons of time with their class as a result. She felt she knew him well enough to be sure he could be trusted.

“Alright,” Chat said. “We’ve got eleven miraculous to hand out, so we should get going.”

“ _We_ aren’t going anywhere.” Ladybug put a hand on his arm before turning to their friends. “Can you guys do this if I tell you who is getting what miraculous?”

“Absolutely,” Carapace said.

And so Ladybug told them, and minutes later Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Queen Bee departed from her balcony with the eleven extra miraculous. Suddenly overcome by exhaustion, she sank down on her chair and closed the now empty miraculous box. If everything went right today, she would soon be able to put thirteen miraculous back inside. If it didn’t…

“Is there a reason why we’re not on delivery duty?” Chat asked, sitting down beside him.

“Yeah,” Ladybug said, and then she threw her arms around him in another embrace.

He stiffened for a second, shocked, then melted against her and hugged her back hard.

“I want Alya, Nino and Chloé to keep their miraculous after this. Do you think that’s crazy?” she asked, laying her head on his shoulder. So she felt him shrug as he replied.

“That’s really your choice, My Lady. You’re the guardian now.”

“No, it’s _our_ choice,” she said. “I’m sorry, Chat.”

“For what?”

“For not telling you everything I know about the miraculous. Those kinds of secrets don’t belong between us.” She’d almost lost him because of secrets. Ladybug hugged him tighter.

“I – thank you,” he said, very quietly. “And I don’t think that’s crazy at all.”

She’d expected that, but she was glad to hear he agreed. She sighed. “While we’re waiting, how about I go sneak us some snacks? Then we can talk.”

“That sounds _purr_ -fect,” he said, and Ladybug hid her relieved smile in his shoulder. If he was punning, he was going to be okay.


	28. Confession

In the end, taking down Hawkmoth wasn’t hard at all.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Ladybug asked quietly, laying a hand on Chat’s arm. Even through their suits, he could feel the warmth of that hand and it eased the chill spreading through him – enough so that he could give her an honest response.

“No, I’m not. But this is something I have to do,” Chat told her. As much as he didn’t want to face his father again, he knew that he had to this or he’d always regret it.

Ladybug nodded. “Okay. Let’s go,” she said, and he loved her for the fact that she didn’t push or try to tell him that this wasn’t a good idea. She just pushed open the door.

The sight that greeted them was one that Chat would never forget. Queen Bee and Carapace were standing in front of Gabriel Agreste; the man had been forced to his knees, and his hands were bound behind his back with the cord from Queen Bee’s spinning top. Ryuko stood to the left, sword out. The sharp point of her sword rested lightly on Gabriel’s throat. She hadn’t drawn blood yet, but her tense stance suggested that she wouldn’t hesitate.

“Adrien,” Gabriel hissed when they entered.

Ryuko stiffened. Her eyes flashed with rage. But she had enough self-restraint not to react further – for now.

“Hawkmoth,” Chat said coldly. 

“You don’t understand,” Gabriel said, lifting himself up slightly. “I was doing this for your mother!”

“My… mother?” Chat repeated. 

And then he understood.

Because what else would Gabriel do this for, if not for Émilie?

She was the only thing Gabriel had ever and would ever care about after all.

“Yes! I was doing it to save your mother! She can come back to us!” Gabriel shouted. “All we need is your miraculous and hers!” He jerked his chin towards Ladybug, but never took his eyes off Chat.

“And the terrible price that you’d have to pay in return means nothing?” Ladybug snapped, seemingly unable to keep herself quiet.

“If she _really_ loved you, she’d let you save your mother,” Gabriel said. He finally looked at Ladybug, but it was an expression of such _hatred_ that Ladybug actually took a step back.

Chat stepped in front of her.

“Shut up,” he said quietly, but his voice grew in volume as he continued to speak. “SHUT UP! Why should I believe anything that you say? You’ve _never_ told me the truth before. Do you really think that Mère would want this? Do you think she’d want you to _hurt and kill people_?! THAT DOESN’T JUST GO AWAY!”

“Once I make my wish, none of it would matter! It would all be erased!” Gabriel yelled back.

There it was.

The last piece of the puzzle.

Suddenly Chat understood his father’s behavior with crystal clarity.

Because why bother to treat a son with any affection beyond the bare minimum if you were going to re-write the world?

“I’m done with you,” Chat said shakily. “I never want to see you again.”

He turned on his heel and stalked out the door. 

He held himself together until he was down the hall a little way.

Then he crumbled to the ground, unable to stand up under the weight of his father’s confession and all of the accompanying realizations, Gabriel’s screaming ringing in his ears.

Until it was abruptly cut off.

Ladybug knelt beside him a moment later, pulling him into her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m so sorry, Adrien.”

“At least now I know why he never cared. I wasn’t worth the effort,” Chat said, eyes filling with tears. “Ladybug, he knows about us. What if he – if he –”

“Shh.” Ladybug smoothed the hair away from his face and bent to kiss his forehead. “Queen Bee, Carapace and Ryuko are putting the fear of god into him right now. But even if he does say something, it doesn’t matter. We’ll deal with it, okay?”

He could tell that the idea scared her just as much as it did him, but she was trying to be strong for him and he needed that at the moment.

So he didn’t argue.

“Thank you,” he whispered finally.

“You don’t have to thank me. We’re partners,” Ladybug said. She kissed his cheek then, catching a tear with her lips, then used her thumbs to wipe away his remaining tears. Then she cupped his face, looking deeply into his eyes like she was willing him to believe her.

“Partners,” Chat repeated, the word sinking deep into his heart; he clung to it, like he clung to her.


	29. Against the world

Watching the police take Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur away in handcuffs was a strange experience.

Strange, but liberating.

Because Ladybug and Chat Noir had finally accomplished what Master Fu had spent his whole life trying to do.

“What will you do with them?” Rena Rouge asked curiously, coming up behind her.

Ladybug turned to look at her friend, knowing exactly what Rena Rouge was referring to. The Butterfly and Peacock miraculouses were safely enclosed in Chat’s pocket, and there they would both stay until Ladybug had the chance to put them both back into the miraculous box where they belonged.

“For now, nothing,” she replied. “I was always told that the Peacock is damaged somehow. It would have to be fixed before I could give it to someone, and I have no idea how to do that. And I’m guessing Nooroo could use a break from having a holder anyway.”

“Yeah, poor thing. Imagine having to serve that for months,” Rena Rouge said, making a face as she nodded towards Gabriel.

“I really can’t,” Ladybug said quietly, casting a concerned look at her partner. 

Chat was standing alone, hands clasped into fists at his sides. With his slumped shoulders and lowered kitty ears, he looked like the whole world was against him.

But it wasn’t.

He had a whole team to stand with him against the world.

And one partner who was more than willing to lead the fray.

She walked over to Chat and took his hand, lacing their fingers together again. They had already talked to the police and given their statements; for once, she and Chat had the least to say because they hadn’t been too involved in the takedown. Queen Bee and Carapace had led the charge against Hawkmoth, and Rena Rouge had gleefully led the other half of their team against Mayura.

From what Ladybug understood, Nathalie had surrendered fairly quickly. Without Gabriel, she didn’t seem to have much of a backbone.

“I guess that’s it,” Chat said softly, his eyes shadowed. “It’s really over.”

“This part of it is,” Ladybug said, thinking about the days to come. Gabriel and Nathalie would both be tried, wouldn’t they? It sure sounded like the city of Paris was planning to press charges. The whole thing was going to bring an awful lot of attention down on Adrien. 

He took a deep breath and turned to her, forcing a smile. “Do you need my help collecting all the miraculous, My Lady? Even if you let Queen Bee, Rena Rouge and Carapace keep theirs, that’s still –”

“Oh my god, are you serious?!” Rena Rouge squealed.

Ladybug jumped, then squeaked as Rena Rouge grabbed her by the shoulders.

“ _Are you serious_?!” she shouted again into Ladybug’s face.

“I – well – maybe?” Ladybug stuttered, shocked. She hadn’t discussed it with Trixx, Pollen or Wayzz yet; she wasn’t even sure if Wayzz would want another permanent holder so soon after Master Fu, but – 

“OH MY GOD!” Rena Rouge shouted, still in Ladybug’s face.

Chat burst out laughing.

Both girls turned to him in surprise.

Then they looked at each other.

Rena Rouge gave a sheepish smile and took her hands off Ladybug’s shoulders. “Umm… sorry. I got a little carried away, didn’t I?”

“It’s fine,” Ladybug said fondly, squeezing Chat’s hand. “Yes, we’re thinking about it. But we don’t know for sure. It’s a big decision.”

“You can totally trust us!” Rena Rouge said. 

“Even Queen Bee?” Chat asked her, curious.

“Much as I hate to admit, I think so. I know she fucked up big time, but Hawkmoth’s really good at manipulating people,” Rena Rouge said. “When he starts using his powers on you, it’s pretty hard to feel anything other than what _he_ wants you to feel.”

Chat nodded, silent.

Ladybug nodded too. She had already been thinking the same thing but hearing Rena Rouge echo her thoughts only confirmed it. Having three other permanent miraculous holders would take some of the pressure off of her and Chat, especially now that they no longer had to worry about the Butterfly and the Peacock.

“We’re going home,” she said to Rena Rouge. “Would you guys go around and take back the miraculous gave out?”

Rena Rouge saluted her. “Your wish is our command, Boss!” Then she marched away.

“Oh god,” Ladybug said, pained. “I’ve made a mistake.”

“Such a mistake,” Chat confirmed, but he was chuckling – so it was worth it.


	30. Rooftop dates

With all the reverence he felt the moment possessed, Chat gently laid the Peacock miraculous and Butterfly miraculous back where they belonged. Then he and Ladybug stood there for a few seconds. The two items looked so innocent against the purple and blue felt. For the first time, he thought he could understand an impulsive young Fu’s desire to use them.

“I wish I could tell Master Fu that we won,” Ladybug said, her voice somewhere between wistful and sad. Chat glanced over at her. She was standing on the other side of her desk, looking down at the miraculous box.

“You could write to him,” Chat offered, but Ladybug shook her head.

“I don’t have an address for him. I told Madame Lenoir that it wasn’t safe for me to know. Besides, it’s not like he would understand what I was telling him even if I knew where they were.” Her expression closed off briefly before she sighed. “He never told me that he would lose his memories when he made me the guardian.”

“I’m sorry,” Chat said. It seemed like the right thing to say. 

Ladybug shot him a bittersweet smile. “Don’t apologize. At least he told me some things.”

Chat blinked, startled. “Ladybug?”

“I should have pushed harder for things to be equal between us,” Ladybug said. “I meant what I said before: secrets have no place between us. Not anymore. I don’t want to be like Fu. I don’t want to spend my life alone, never sharing anything with anyone. I don’t _want_ that.”

And she looked, for a moment, terrified, like being the guardian of the miraculous had somehow imposed that future on her against her will.

“You’re not alone,” Chat said, reaching instinctively for her hands. “You told me we were partners, right?”

“Right,” Ladybug said uncertainly.

“So that means we forgive each other when we mess up, or when we get akumatized.” Chat took a deep breath, willing himself not to dwell on that for now. He was going to have a breakdown in the very near future, and he figured that Ladybug probably was too, but he wanted to hold it together as long as he could.

Her eyes searching his face intently, as though trying to see if he was being honest, before she gave a small smile.

“Yeah, but I still want to make up for my mistakes.”

“They were also Master Fu’s mistakes,” Chat reminded her.

“But he’s not here and I am. So, what would you say to some rooftop dates in the near future? I want to tell you everything.”

“Everything?” he repeated.

Ladybug nodded. “Everything. All I know about the miraculous and being the guardian and – and _everything_ , Chat, every last thing that I can possibly think of. Any questions you have, I want to answer them all.”

A tight knot that had been in his chest for _years_ loosened with every passionate word that she spoke. He hadn’t consciously realized until that moment just how much it bothered him to have been left in the dark. He would never receive an explanation, or an apology, from Master Fu, but Ladybug’s determined expression went a long way towards soothing the bitterness.

“Okay,” he said softly, squeezing her hands. “And – if you had any questions, I’d answer yours too. That no secrets things should probably go both ways.”

“Ah,” Ladybug said, inexplicably flushing. “It’s… yeah. Maybe once I’ve had a little time to process? I mean – not that I’m not happy you’re you – I’m always happy you’re you – I mean!” She blushed harder.

“I get what you mean,” Chat said, charmed. Had he been less exhausted, he might have teased a bit: she was pretty cute when she blushed. 

But he also understood what she meant. In the span of twenty-four hours, he’d been akumatized, Ladybug had had to fight his akumatized self, they had found out who each other was, they’d been outed to their teammates, they’d found out who Hawkmoth and Mayura was and gotten them arrested, _and_ that was on top of their original stressful akuma battle and being trapped with each other’s miraculous.

Neither of them was in top shape right now.

He looked around and then gestured to her chaise. “Could we just – sit? For a minute?”

Her face softened and she nodded, leading him over to the chaise by the hand. They sat quietly together for a few minutes.

“I’ll have to get Plagg and Tikki some cookies and cheese,” Ladybug said finally.

Chat sighed. “I have to talk to the police.” He dreaded the thought of _that_ conversation, but the police were probably looking for Adrien.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. “In a little while?”

He rested his head on top of hers. “In a little while.”


	31. Home

“This is a bad idea,” she said.

He pouted at her. “Hawkmoth is gone, remember? There’s no danger.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Come on, what could –”

“If you want this to happen, _do not_ tempt fate by finishing that sentence!”

He laughed in that way that had been making her heart flutter more and more lately, and, before she knew it, she was giving in.

And that was how Lady Noire and Mister Bug came to be patrolling through Paris again.

Well, kind of patrolling. Truth be told, Queen Bee, Carapace and Rena Rouge were out and about every single night, so there was really no need for her and Chat to do the dirty work. Plus, with no Hawkmoth and no Mayura, Paris had been calm and quiet ever since that fateful night six weeks ago. So it wasn’t really patrolling so much as it was the two of them running across the rooftops together.

Lady Noire didn’t mind. It had been a little hard to relax at first, but now she found it was nice not having to worry about an akuma popping up. They could just cut back and let loose and have fun. Or at least, they usually could.

“Where are we going?” she called out to her partner. He was definitely moving with a goal in mind.

“You’ll see!” Mister Bug replied, shooting her a grin over his shoulder. In spite of everything, she had noticed that his smiles came more freely now. 

It didn’t take her long to realize they were headed for Le Grand Paris. Officially, Adrien Agreste lived there now. His aunt hadn’t put up much of a fight about him staying in Paris, which they had all been relieved about. Unofficially, Marinette’s parents had all but adopted him. If Adrien ever tired of living in the hotel, there was definitely a home for him in the Dupain-Cheng bakery.

He landed on his balcony first, and she landed right behind him.

“Did you forget something?” she asked curiously

“Nope,” he said, and gestured over her shoulder.

Lady Noire turned around.

And gasped.

“Chat?” she whispered, taking in the sight of the small table for two that had been set up. 

How had she missed the dozens of lit candles lined up along the railings?

Or the delicious smell of Alya’s mother’s cooking?

Her heart started to pound.

Or that beautiful bouquet of flowers in the middle of the table…

Mister Bug slipped past her and walked over to the table. He picked up one of the flowers: a red rose.

“Do you remember,” he asked quietly, “that night I brought Marinette to see the terrace I had set up for Ladybug?”

She swallowed. “Yes, of course.” They’d really gotten their wires crossed that day. Marinette had been so sad that Adrien hadn’t shown up for ice cream, while Chat had been crushed that Ladybug hadn’t come to his romantic rooftop date. She remembered feeling so guilty when she got the chance to see what Chat had done for her. 

Telling him about Adrien had been harder than she expected, and his reaction had been so sweet. 

He was _always_ so sweet.

“I know you said there was a boy,” Mister Bug went on. “I know that nothing has really changed. But we said there should be no more secrets between us, so…”

“A boy?” Lady Noire repeated.

He sighed, holding the rose out to her. “I know you like Luka, but –”

“I don’t like Luka!” Lady Noire said. “You - you like Kagami.”

Mister Bug blinked. “What? I don’t like Kagami.”

“You… you don’t?”

“No. I like Ladybug.”

She froze.

He froze.

They looked at each other for a long time.

Then Mister Bug seemed to gather his courage. He moved closer, still holding the rose out. “I like _you_. it’s always been you.”

“Even now?” she whispered.

“Especially now,” he said gravely. “If you want a homeless alley cat, you can have him.”

Lady Noire took a deep breath. “I see no homeless alley cats here,” she said gently. “I just see a bug and a cat, having a long-awaited dinner together.”

She took the rose from him as she spoke and held it to her nose, taking another deep breath. It smelled wonderful. Like a fresh, healthy start.

His smile was tentative. “Is that a yes?”

“From day one, there’s no one who has ever come close to you,” Lady Noire told him honestly. Chat Noir was the only other boy who had truly made her think twice about giving up on Adrien; by comparison, Luka had been nothing more than a passing thought.

Mister Bug’s shoulders relaxed. “Even though my father was Hawkmoth?”

“You can’t be blamed for his actions,” she said, just as she’d told him every day since. Maybe someday, once the case had gone to the courts and everything was finalized, he might even believe it.

“Hmm,” he said, just like he always did, and then he changed the subject. “You can blame Alya if you don’t like the food.”

Suddenly, she got it and laughed. “Is that what the swap was about? You were distracting me so they could set this up?”

“Yup, and you fell for it. Nino thought you’d see right through it; he owes me twenty bucks,” he said with a smirk.

“Twenty bucks is enough for a movie date,” she said thoughtfully.

“I planned this date. The next one is on you,” Mister Bug said, but with none of his usual edge, like he couldn’t believe there would be any dates at all. She knew the feeling, and better yet she already knew exactly where they would go to prove him wrong. He was going to be over the moon when he found out about the convention, and about the costumes she had been working away at over the past several weeks.

“Fair,” she said, deciding to tell him about the convention later, and closed the distance between them a bit more. Had the rose been between them, their noses would’ve been touching the petals.

“My Lady?” he whispered.

“My kitty,” she murmured.

“Not a kitty right now,” Mister Bug pointed out, green eyes twinkling.

Lady Noire smiled. “You’ll _always_ be my kitty,” she said softly, and kissed him to prove it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concludes Ladynoir July 2020. Thank you so much for all of the comments and kudos!

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://tsuki-chibi.tumblr.com/).


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